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DONATED  TO  THE  LIBRARY 
OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  TORONTO 

in  memory  of 

HORACE  LLEWELLYN  SEYMOUR 

B.A.SC.  1913 
CANADIAN  TOWN  PLANNER  1915  TO  1940 

from  his  daughter,  Marion  Seymour 
Dip.T&PR  1957 


TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 


TOWN    THEORY 
AND    PRACTICE 

* 

BY 

W.  R.  LETHABY         GEORGE  L.  PEPLER 

SIR  THEODORE  G.  CHAMBERS,  K.B.E. 

RAYMOND  UNWIN         R.  L.  REISS 

EDITED 

WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION 

BY 

C.  B.  PURDOM 


LONDON:   BENN  BROTHERS,  LIMITED 

8  BOUVERIE  STREET,  E.C.4 

1921 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

AN  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER    .         .          9 
By  C.  B.  PURDOM, 

Author  of  "  The  Garden  City :  A  Study  in  the 
Development  of  a  Modern  Town." 

CHAP. 

I.  THE  TOWN  ITSELF         ...         47 

A  Garden  City  is  a  Town : 
BY  W.  R.  LETHABY. 

II.  THE  TOWN  PLAN  ....         63 

.    .   .  planned  for  industry  and  healthy 
living ; 

BY  G.  L.  PEPLER, 

Past  President,  Town  Planning  Institute. 

III.  THE  TOWN  AND  THE  BEST  SIZE 

FOR  GOOD  SOCIAL  LIFE      .         .         80 

.  .  .  of  a  size  that  makes  possible  a  full 
measure  of  social  life,  but  not  larger ; 

BY  RAYMOND  UNWIN, 

Author  of  "  Town  Planning  in  Practice." 


6    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 


PAGE 


IV.  THE  TOWN  AND  AGRICULTURE          103 

.  .  .  surrounded  by  a  permanent  belt  of 
rural  land ; 

BY  SIR  THEODORE  CHAMBERS,  K.B.E., 

Chairman,  Welwyn  Garden  City  Ltd. 

V.  THE  TOWN  AND  LAND  .         .         .118 

.    .    .    the  whole  of  the  land  being  in 
public  ownership  or  held  in  trust 
for  the  community. 

BY  R.  L.  REISS, 

Chairman,  Executive  Committee,  Garden  Cities  and 
Town  Planning  Association. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  137 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PIG.  FACING  PAGE 

1.  EBENEZEE    HOWARD'S    DIAGRAM    OF   A 

GARDEN  CITY,  FROM  "  TO-MORROW  " 
(1898) 18 

2.  MAP  OF  LETCHWORTH  (1921)  ...         24 

3.  TOWN  PLAN  OF  WELWYN  GARDEN  CITY.         28 

4.  DIAGRAM  OF  SATELLITE  TOWNS  AROUND 

LONDON         .....         32 

5.  PLAN  OF  PART  OF  AN  EXISTING  TOWN   .         66 

6.  MAP  OF  AN  ENGLISH  TOWN  THAT  WAS 

NOT  PLANNED  ...         68 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER 

By  C.  B.  PUEDOM 

WITHIN  two  years  the  municipalities  of 
all  towns  in  Great  Britain  with  popula- 
tions of  twenty  thousand  and  over  will  be 
required  by  law  to  prepare  "  town-plans." 
Hitherto,  as  is  well  known,  there  has  been 
a  minimum  or  entire  absence  of  planning, 
and  the  result  is  the  unpleasing,  incon- 
venient, and  unhealthy  agglomerations  of 
buildings  which  we  call  towns  and  cities 
to-day.  In  the  future  that  state  of  things 
is  not  to  be  repeated,  and  municipal 
authorities,  which  have  had  the  power  for 
a  dozen  years  to  plan  their  towns  without 
availing  themselves  of  it  to  any  extent, 
are  to  be  compelled  to  make  plans.  But 
before  this  immense  municipal  activity  is 
set  going  through  the  length  and  breadth 


10    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

of  the  country,  it  is  proper  that  the 
question  should  be  raised,  "What  should 
be  the  aim  in  town-planning  ? "  A 
multitude  of  town-plans,  guided  by  no 
purpose  or  by  an  inadequate  or  mean 
purpose,  would  be  worse  than  no  plans 
at  all.  Better  to  suffer  the  ills  we  have 
already  in  our  towns  than  to  aggravate 
them  by  hasty,  unskilful,  or  stupid  plan- 
ning. Therefore  those  who  are  concerned 
with  town-plans — which  is  all  of  us  who 
live  in  towns — must  discover  what  sort 
of  towns  they  really  want  and  how  it  is 
possible  to  get  them. 

This  book  has  been  written  to  stimulate 
discussion  about  towns  and  their  planning. 
It  sets  .down  the  main  outlines  of  the 
subject  in  a  way  intended  to  appeal  to 
the  ordinary  reader.  For  the  purpose  of 
definition  the  town  idea  which  is  implicit 
in  the  term  "  garden  city "  has  been 
employed  as  the  basis  of  discussion.  It 
is  necessary  to  explain  why.  The  "  garden 
city "  is  a  well-known  though  generally 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER    11 

misapplied  term,  lavishly  used  by  people 
who  never  seem  to  have  troubled  to  in- 
quire into  its  meaning.  Its  real  import- 
ance is  that  it  is  the  one  specific  conception, 
idea,  or  plan  of  a  town  that  has  emerged 
in  industrial  England  designed  for  an 
industrial  community  and  in  harmony 
with  the  traditional  ideals  of  English ' 
town-life.  For  this  reason,  the  grounds 
of  which  are  made  plain  in  the  book  itself, 
the  description  of  a  garden  city  has  formed 
the  common  ground  upon  which  those 
who  have  contributed  to  this  book  have 
met.  It  has  given  the  opportunity  that 
was  required  for  arriving  at  an  answer  to 
the  question  we  have  already  formulated. 
The  obvious  reply  to  the  question  is  that 
our  towns  should  be  planned  to  make 
convenient,  healthy,  and  beautiful  places 
to  live  and  work  in.  But  we  want  some- 
thing more  than  an  obvious  reply,  we  want 
an  illustration  in  detail  of  what  is  meant. 
Therefore,  as  the  type  of  modern  town  that 
most  completely  fulfils  these  conditions, 


12    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

at  least  ideally,  is  the  garden  city,  the 
question  arises :  What  is  a  garden  city  ? 
And  this  book  is  the  answer. 

The  garden  city  is  understood  to  be  a 
new  town ;  and  if  we  are  to  get  a  clear 
picture  in  our  minds  of  what  a  town  should 
be,  we  are  bound  to  think  of  a  new  town. 
This  is  not  to  be  Utopian,  even  though 
the  main  problem  of  so  many  of  us  is  that 
of  old  towns  and  cities,  because  there  is 
still  great  scope  in  our  country,  as  in  other 
countries,  for  the  building  of  new  towns  ; 
indeed,  the  effort  already  employed  in  the 
development  of  great  suburbs  requires 
but  a  relatively  small  amount  of  impetus 
in  a  fresh  direction  to  transform  those 
suburbs  to  new  towns.  But  the  great  and 
immediate  value  of  the  consideration  of  the 
garden  city  idea,  however,  is  that  it  defines 
a  type  of  town  to  which  the  development 
of  existing  towns  can  in  varying  degrees 
be  made  to  conform.  The  garden  city  is, 
moreover,  not  merely  an  abstract  theory ; 
it  exists  as  a  practical  attempt  to  solve 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER    13 

the  problem  of  the  over-concentration  of 
population  in  great  cities,  which  is  be- 
coming more  and  more  pressing  in  all 
civilised  countries  throughout  the  world. 
In  the  opinion  of  many  people,  including 
those  who  have  co-operated  to  produce 
this  book,  it  is  the  most  important  con- 
tribution to  the  solution  of  that  problem 
that  has  yet  been  made  in  this  country  or 
abroad.  The  term  "  garden  city "  has 
become  well  known  in  association  with 
new  ideas  of  housing  and  new  methods 
of  town-planning ;  but  its  significance  is 
deeply  rooted  in  the  desire  to  remedy  the 
evils  of  overcrowding  and  congestion  of 
population  in  the  towns,  which  is  the 
greatest  obstacle  to  the  improvement  of 
civic  life.  In  this  chapter  it  is  my  busi- 
ness to  explain  what  that  significance  is. 
I  shall  do  so  by  describing  how  the  term 
came  into  use,  what  those  who  introduced 
it  meant  by  it,  and  what  has  been  done  to 
give  it  practical  effect. 


14    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

Popular  use  of  the  term  "  Garden  City" 

The  current  use  of  the  term  "  garden 
city "  is  due  entirely  to  a  book  pub- 
lished in  London,  in  1898,  by  Ebenezer 
Howard,  under  the  title  of  To-morrow,  in 
which  a  proposal  for  a  new  type  of  town 
was  described.  As  a  consequence  of  the 
publication  of  that  book,  and  more  par- 
ticularly of  the  propaganda  that  was 
undertaken  on  behalf  of  the  proposal 
contained  within  it,  the  term  became 
widely  known  and  is  now  freely  used  by 
people  interested  in  housing  throughout 
the  world.  No  housing  enterprise  is 
either  too  small  or  too  ambitious  to  be 
described  as  a  garden  city,  and  no  town- 
planning  scheme,  however  grandiose,  is 
complete  without  provision  for  cites- 
jardin.  It  is  not  surprising  that  in  the 
process  of  popularisation  the  term  should 
have  come  to  be  very  loosely  used.  The 
speculative  builder,  for  example,  has  seized 
upon  it  eagerly,  and  is  everywhere  to  be 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER    15 

seen  exploiting  the  commercial  value 
of  an  attractive  name.  We  have  been 
made  familiar,  in  the  last  few  years,  with 
such  terms  as  "  garden  suburb,"  "  garden 
village,"  "  garden  settlement,"  and  com- 
binations of  "  garden  "  with  other  words. 
Whenever  people  have  wanted  to  speak 
of  good  practice  in  cottage  building,  site- 
planning,  or  town-planning,  they  have 
tacked  "  garden  "  on  to  any  combination 
of  words  they  have  fancied  and  then  taken 
for  granted  that  they  were  in  the  garden 
city  movement.  This  confusion  is  serious, 
because  the  term  "  garden  city "  has  a 
precise  meaning  that  is  possessed  by  no 
other  term  in  current  use ;  and  I  propose 
now  to  show,  as  a  preliminary  to  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  term  in  detail,  what  that 
meaning  is. 

An  American  Garden  City 

It  is  interesting  to  note,  before  we  pro- 
ceed further,  that  the  first  use  of  the 
name  "  garden  city  "  appears  to  have  been 


16    TOWN  THEORY  AXD  PRACTICE 

made  by  one  Alexander  T.  Stewart,  a 
merchant  prince  of  New  York,  who  estab- 
lished a  model  estate  on  Long  Island, 
N.Y.,  in  1869.  Stewart  was  the  head  of 
the  largest  relail  dry  goods  store  in  New 
York,  which  later  became  the  establishment 
known  as  John  Wanamakers,  and,  like 
some  other  millionaires,  he  was  of  a  philan- 
thropic turn  of  mind.  He  purchased  8000 
acres  of  the  town  lands  of  Hempstead, 
on  Long  Island,  at  the  price  of  fifty-five 
dollars  an  acre,  his  object  being  to  build 
a  model  town  for  his  own  and  other  New 
York  workers.  He  disclaimed,  however, 
any  philanthropic  or  charitable  intention 
in  the  following  letter  to  the  editor  of  the 
Hempstead  Sentinel : 

NEW  YORK, 

6th  July  1869 

Having  been  informed  that  interested  parties  are 
circulating  statements  to  the  effect  that  my  purpose 
in  desiring  to  purchase  the  Hempstead  Plains  is  to 
devote  them  to  the  erection  of  tenement  houses,  and 
public  charities  of  a  like  character,  etc. 


AX  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER    17 

I  consider  it  proper  to  state  that  my  only  object 
in  seeking  to  acquire  these  lands  is  to  devote  them 
to  the  usual  purposes  for  which  such  lands,  so  located, 
should  be  applied — that  is,  open  them  by  construct- 
ing extensive  public  roads,  laying  out  the  lands  in 
parcels  for  sale  to  actual  settlers,  and  erecting  at 
various  points  attractive  buildings  and  residences, 
so  that  a  barren  waste  may  speedily  be  covered  by  a 
population  desirable  in  every  respect  as  neighbour 
taxpayers  and  as  citizens.  In  doing  this  I  am 
prepared  and  would  be  willing  to  expend  several 
millions  of  dollars. 

If  Stewart  had  no  philanthropic  object, 
it  is  probable  that  he  had  far-reaching 
idealistic  plans  for  his  model  city.  The 
land  was  barren  common-land,  and  he 
immediately  set  to  work  to  convert  it 
into  farms  and  to  lay  out  his  new  city  of 
gardens.  Unfortunately  he  died  seven 
years  later  and  the  scheme  was  held  up. 
He  had,  however,  put  down  a  railway  from 
New  York  and  constructed  wide,  tree- 
lined  roads,  and  at  the  time  of  his  death 
there  had  been  built  102  houses,  rented 
at  150  dollars  to  1200  dollars  each,  with  a 
population  of  275.  After  a  period  of 


18    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

some  stagnation,  following  the  abandon- 
ment of  the  original  scheme,  it  became 
a  thriving  suburb  of  New  York,  rather 
better  than  the  ordinary  suburb,  inhabited 
by  people  of  some  means.  It  was  probably 
not  intended  for  industry  by  Stewart, 
and  certainly  in  its  later  development  it 
was  simply  a  residential  suburb ;  but, 
like  many  other  suburbs  around  large 
cities,  in  course  of  time  it  attracted  manu- 
facturers and  has  now  several  large 
factories.  One  of  Stewart's  ideas  was  to 
keep  the  freehold  of  the  land  in  his  own 
hands,  and  until  after  his  death  the  land 
was  not  sold,  but  leased.  We  may  fairly 
suppose  that  had  he  lived  the  scheme  may 
have  possessed  many  interesting  and  novel 
features  and  have  become  a  town  of  note. 

"  Garden  Cities  of  To-morrow  " 

Our  use  of  the  term  "  garden  city  "  has, 
however,  nothing  directly  to  do  with 
Stewart.  Mr  Howard,  in  the  book  that 
has  already  been  mentioned,  came  upon 


w 

03 

o 

S 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER    19 

the  name  independently ;  and  it  is  with 
Mr  Howard's  idea  and  the  attempt  to  put 
that  idea  into  practice  that  we  are  now 
concerned.  I  make  the  following  summary 
of  his  proposal  for  a  garden  city  from 
Garden  Cities  of  To-morrow,  the  title  under 
which  To-morrow  was  re-issued  in  1902 
and  is  best  known. 

An  estate  of  6000  acres  was  to  be  bought 
at  a  cost  of  £40  an  acre,  or  £240,000.  The 
estate  was  to  be  held  in  trust,  "  first,  as  a 
security  for  the  debenture-holders,  and, 
secondly,  in  trust  for  the  people  of  Garden 
City."  A  town  was  to  be  built  near  the 
centre  of  the  estate  to  occupy  about  1000 
acres.  Six  boulevards  were  to  divide  the 
town  into  six  equal  parts.  In  the  centre 
was  to  be  a  park  in  which  were  placed 
the  public  buildings,  and  around  the  park 
a  great  arcade  containing  shops,  etc.  The 
population  of  the  town  was  to  be  30,000. 
The  building  plots  were  to  be  of  an  average 
size  of  20  by  130  feet.  There  were  to  be 
common  gardens  and  co-operative  kitchens. 


20    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

On  the  outer  ring  of  the  town  there  were 
to  be  factories,  warehouses,  etc.,  fronting 
on  a  circular  railway.  The  agricultural 
estate  of  5000  acres  was  to  be  properly 
developed  for  agricultural  purposes  as 
part  of  the  scheme,  and  the  population 
of  this  belt  was  taken  at  2000. 

The  entire  revenue  of  the  town  was  to 
be  derived  from  ground  rents,  which  were 
considered  to  be  amply  sufficient  "  (a)  to 
pay  the  interest  on  the  money  with  which 
the  estate  is  purchased,  (b)  to  provide  a 
sinking  fund  for  the  purpose  of  paying  off 
the  principal,  (c)  to  construct  and  maintain 
all  such  works  as  are  usually  constructed 
and  maintained  by  municipal  and  other 
local  authorities  out  of  rates  compulsorily 
levied,  and  (d)  after  redemption  of  de- 
bentures to  provide  a  large  surplus  for 
other  purposes,  such  as  old-age  pensions 
or  insurance  against  accident  and  sickness  " 

The  ground  rents  were  therefore  de- 
scribed as  rate-rents.  The  administra- 
tion of  the  town  was  to  be  in  the  hands  of 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER    21 

a  Board  of  Management  elected  by  the 
rate-renters. 

Questions  of  finance,  engineering,  muni- 
cipal enterprise,  agriculture,  local  option, 
etc.,  are  discussed  in  the  book,  but  the 
essence  of  the  scheme  is  contained  in  these 
words  : 

There  are  in  reality  not  only,  as  is  so  constantly 
assumed,  two  alternatives — town  life  and  country 
life — but  a  third  alternative,  in  which  all  the  ad- 
vantages of  the  most  energetic  and  active  town  life, 
with  all  the  beauty  and  delight  of  the  country,  may 
be  secured  in  perfect  combination. 

This  "  healthy,  natural  and  economic  com- 
bination of  town  and  country  life  "  was 
to  be  brought  about  by  ownership  of  the 
land  in  the  interest  of  the  community 
living  upon  it.  The  town  was  to  be 
properly  planned,  limited  in  size,  and  all 
the  amenities  of  life  were  to  be  developed  ; 
but  the  power  of  this  "  town-country 
magnet,"  as  the  author  called  it,  came  from 
the  fact  that  there  was  to  be  "  but  one 
landlord,  and  this  the  community."  If 


22    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

the  book  be  examined — and  it  is  still  worth 
careful  reading — it  will  be  found  that 
although  the  details  of  the  scheme  are 
treated  with  a  certain  amount  of  hesita- 
tion, the  firm  basis  of  it  is  the  unity  of 
urban  and  rural  interests  in  a  single  com- 
munity and  the  ownership  of  the  land  by 
that  community. 

The  Garden  City  Movement 

Soon  after  the  book  was  published  the 
Garden  Cities  Association  was  formed  to 
make  the  idea  known  and  to  take  steps 
to  give  practical  effect  to  it.  An  actual 
example  of  this  ideal  town  was  required, 
and  a  large  number  of  people  came  to  be 
convinced  that  it  could  be  undertaken. 

The  essential  character  of  the  enterprise 
that  was  to  be  attempted  was  never  once 
in  doubt.  In  the  first  tract  issued  by 
the  Association  (September  1899)  the 
garden  city  proposal  is  described  as  "  a 
combination  of  town  and  country  possess- 
ing superior  advantages  over  either  city 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER    23 

or  country  life."  In  the  first  detailed 
statement  of  its  objects  (1901)  the  same 
thing  is  insisted  upon.  "  The  idea  is  to 
bring  the  town  to  the  country  by  the 
establishment  of  industrial  centres  in 
rural  districts."  The  late  Sir  Ralph 
Neville,  chairman  of  the  Council  of  the 
Association  for  many  years,  explained 
the  principle  over  and  over  again.  At  a 
conference  held  at  Bournville,  in  1901,  he 
said  that  the  proposals  were  "  to  purchase 
a  site  at  agricultural  prices  ...  to  lay 
that  site  out  as  a  city,  a  city  in  which 
manufacture  shall  proceed  and  the  labourer 
will  find  a  home  .  .  .  the  advantages  of 
country  life  being  secured  by  the  per- 
manent allocation  of  a  large  proportion  of 
the  site  belonging  to  the  Garden  City  to 
agriculture,  and  the  restriction  of  build- 
ings to  a  fixed  proportion  of  the  site 
purchased  .  .  ."  (Report  of  Garden  City 
Conference  at  Bournville,  p.  12).  And 
later,  at  the  same  conference,  he  declared 
that  the  "  real  basis  of  the  thing  "  was  the 


24    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

"  automatic  rise  in  the  value  of  the  land 
which  will  take  p^ce  as  soon  as  you  attract 
the  people  to  your  city,"  and  "  that 
increment  goes  to  the  advantage  of  the 
citizens  themselves  "  (Ibid.,  pp.  24-5). 

In  the  literature  of  the  movement  these 
two  elements  of  the  idea  were  consistently 
affirmed,  and  their  advantages  to  manu- 
facturers and  the  community  at  large  were 
strongly  urged. 

The  First  Garden  City 

The  attempt  to  establish  a  garden  city 
took  shape  in  1903,  when  a  company  was 
formed  and  a  large  area  of  land  was  pur- 
chased at  Letchworth  in  Hertfordshire. 
We  have  thus  not  merely  the  abstract 
statement  of  the  idea,  but  a  concrete  ex- 
ample of  it.  First  Garden  City  Limited 
was  incorporated  under  the  Companies 
Acts,  with  an  authorised  capital  of 
£300,000  to  purchase  an  estate  of  3818 
acres  (since  increased  to  4500  acres),  and  to 
establish  thereon  a  town,  with  industries, 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER    25 

with  a  population  of  80,000,  in  accordance 
with  the  scheme  set  out  by  Mr  Howard 
in  his  book.  The  dividends  on  the  share 
capital  were  limited  to  5  per  cent,  and  the 
balance  of  the  profits  of  the  Company 
were  to  go  to  the  community. 

In  the  original  prospectus  of  the  Garden 
City  Company  (1903)  it  was  stated  that 
4  The  exceptional  features  of  this  scheme 
are  that  the  town  is  to  be  limited  to  a 
population  of  about  30,000  inhabitants, 
that  the  greater  portion  of  the  estate  is 
to  be  retained  for  agricultural  purposes, 
and  that  the  dividends  to  shareholders 
are  to  be  limited.  .  .  ."  And  among  the 
advantages  anticipated  is  :  "  That  the 
inhabitants  will  have  the  satisfaction  of 
knowing  that  the  increment  of  value  of 
the  land  created  by  themselves  will  be 
devoted  to  their  benefit."  These  twin 
principles  are  clear,  they  are  fundamental, 
and  they  give  the  town  of  Letchworth  its 
character.  The  town  has  other  features, 
it  is  true ;  but  they  are  based  upon 


26   TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

that  foundation.  There  is  the  town  plan, 
there  is  the  limitation  of  the  number  of 
houses  to  the  acre,  there  is  the  allocation 
of  areas  for  various  functional  purposes, 
and  there  are  other  matters  of  great 
interest  and  importance.  They  are  all  as 
necessary  to  the  modern  town  as  roads, 
drainage,  and  a  water  supply.  But  what 
make  Letchworth  are  (a)  the  conception 
of  a  town  as  an  organism  in  which  agri- 
culture and  mechanical  industry  are  asso- 
ciated, and  (b)  the  existence  of  a  social 
claim  to  land  value. 

Letchworth  has  become  a  town  of  10,313 
inhabitants  (census  1921),  with  factories 
and  workshops,  and  is  steadily  growing. 
Its  population  is  largely  industrial  and  it 
provides  employment  for  a  large  popula- 
tion in  the  surrounding  villages.  The 
town  is  now  an  urban  district,  with 
a  district  council.  The  industries  are 
engineering  in  various  branches,  printing, 
corset-making,  and  a  variety  of  other  light 
trades.  There  is  a  residential  population 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER    27 

not  concerned  with  the  town's  industries. 
Indeed,  the  town  has  all  the  character- 
istics of  a  normal  community,  though 
the  influence  of  its  planning,  the  absence 
of  bad  housing,  and  the  rural  atmosphere 
are  strongly  felt  in  its  social  life  and 
reflected  in  the  aspect  of  the  town. 
Letchworth  has  no  striking  architectural 
features  except  in  certain  details ;  but 
for  the  student  of  town-planning  in  both 
its  technical  and  sociological  aspects  it  is 
a  valuable  field  of  study. 

A  Second  Garden  City 

Until  1919  Letchworth  stood  alone  as 
an  example  of  a  garden  city ;  but  in 
that  year  a  proposal  was  brought  forward 
for  the  establishment  of  a  second  town 
near  Welwyn,  also  in  Hertfordshire,  but 
nearer  London  than  Letchworth.  In  the 
preliminary  announcement  of  this  scheme 
the  object  was  stated  to  be  : 

...  to  build  an  entirely  new  and  self-dependent 
industrial  town,  on  a  site  twenty-one  miles  from 


28    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

London,  as  an  illustration  of  the  right  way  to  provide 
for  the  expansion  of  the  industries  and  population 
of  a  great  city.  .  .  . 

It  is  urgently  necessary  that  a  convincing  de- 
monstration of  the  garden  city  principle  of  town 
development  shall  be  given  in  time  to  influence  the 
national  housing  programme,  which  is  in  danger  of 
settling  definitely  into  the  wrong  lines.  Unless 
something  is  done  to  popularise  a  more  scientific 
method  of  handling  the  question,  a  very  large  pro- 
portion of  the  houses  to  be  built  under  the  national 
scheme  will  be  added  to  the  big  towns — whose 
growth  is  already  acknowledged  to  be  excessive. 

Garden  suburbs  are  no  solution.  They  are  better 
than  tenements,  but  in  the  case  of  London,  they 
have  to  be  so  far  from  the  centre  that  the  daily 
journeys  are  a  grievous  burden  on  the  workers.  .  .  . 

The  Company's  scheme,  therefore,  will  pay  equal 
attention  to  housing  and  to  the  provision  of  manu- 
facturing facilities.  Healthy  and  well-equipped 
factories  and  workshops  will  be  grouped  in  scientific 
relation  to  transport  facilities,  and  will  be  easily 
accessible  from  the  new  houses  of  the  workers. 

The  town  will  be  laid  out  on  garden  city  principles, 
the  town  area  being  defined  and  the  rest  of  the 
Estate  permanently  reserved  as  an  agricultural 
and  rural  belt.  Particular  care  will  be  taken,  in 
the  arrangement  of  the  town,  to  reduce  internal 
transport  and  transit,  whether  of  factory  and  office 
workers,  or  of  goods,  to  the  practicable  minimum. 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER    29 

A  population  of  40,000  to  50,000  will  be  provided 
for,  efforts  being  made  to  anticipate  all  its  social, 
recreative  and  civic  needs.  The  aim  is  to  create 
a  self-contained  town,  with  a  vigorous  life  of  its 
own  independent  of  London.  .  .  . 

In  accordance  with  those  principles,  the  freehold 
of  the  Estate  will  be  retained  in  the  ownership  of 
the  Company  (except  in  so  far  as  parts  thereof  may 
be  required  for  public  purposes)  in  trust  for  the  future 
community.  .  .  . 

The  building  of  the  new  town  was  de- 
finitely launched  in  May  1920,  when 
Welwyn  Garden  City  Limited  was  formed. 
The  dividend  on  the  share  capital  was 
limited  to  7  per  cent.,  the  balance  of 
the  profits  to  be  devoted  to  the  town. 
Provision  in  the  constitution  of  the  Com- 
pany was  made  for  the  Local  Authority  to 
appoint  three  Directors  on  the  Board  of 
Directors  to  be  known  as  Civic  Directors. 

The  Satellite  Town 

The  establishment  of  the  Welwyn 
Garden  City  is  to  be  noted  as  a  distinct 
development  of  the  practical  application 


30    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

of  the  garden  city  idea  ;  for  it  is  designed 
to  deal  specifically  with  the  problem  of  the 
growth  of  London.  Letchworth  provided 
an  example  of  the  garden  city  de  novo ; 
Welwyn  Garden  City  provides  an  example 
of  the  garden  city  in  its  relation  to  an 
overgrown  centre  of  population.  The 
town  is  so  placed  that  it  is  within  the 
London  sphere  of  influence  ;  the  immediate 
district  is  entirely  rural,  but  north  and 
south  there  is  scattered  a  large  residential 
population  that  depends  upon  London. 
The  position  of  Welwyn  Garden  City, 
within  a  little  more  than  half  an  hour 
by  train  from  London,  is  such  that  it 
would  be  possible  to  develop  it  as  a 
residential  suburb ;  but  that,  however, 
would  be  to  depart  from  the  intention 
of  its  promoters.  The  town  is  planned  as 
an  industrial  centre,  providing  an  alter- 
native site  for  manufacturers  established 
in  London  or  attracted  to  the  neighbour- 
hood. It  is  within  an  hour's  run  from 
central  London  by  road  so  that  distribution 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER    31 

of  goods  in  the  London  area  is  a  simple 
matter,  and  the  docks  and  wharves  of  the 
Thames  can  be  reached  without  touching 
central  London  at  all. 

Welwyn  Garden  City  is  far  enough  away 
from  London  to  be  maintained  as  a  dis- 
tinct civic  unit,  and,  by  grouping  factories 
in  relation  to  roads  and  railways  and  the 
homes  of  the  workers,  and  by  the  develop- 
ment of  an  agricultural  belt,  a  town  is 
being  created  that  will  be  in  no  danger  of 
being  swallowed  up  in  the  outward  growth 
of  the  metropolis.  Indeed,  the  new  town, 
regarded  as  a  satellite  or  daughter  town  of 
London,  shows  how  the  increasing  popula- 
tion of  Greater  London  may  be  accommo- 
dated in  houses  and  factories  without 
adding  to  the  solid  bulk  of  the  great  city. 
On  the  old  system  of  building  development, 
the  process  of  merging  still  more  of  the 
small  towns  and  villages  in  the  home 
counties  into  London  is  but  a  matter  of 
a  short  time.  The  agricultural  land  in 
the  neighbourhood  that  helps  to  feed 


32    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

London  will  then,  as  so  constantly  before, 
become  a  wilderness  of  houses,  and  the 
congestion,  deformity,  and  civic  helpless- 
ness of  London  will  increase.  No  amount 
of  town-planning,  or  arterial  road  con- 
struction, or  preservation  of  open  spaces 
will  effectively  mitigate  that  evil  fate. 
To  direct  the  forces  of  growth  within 
London  into  a  series  of  garden  cities  as 
satellite  towns  each  with  its  corporate 
life  and  industrial  equipment,  would  be 
of  incalculable  benefit  to  London,  and 
enormously  enrich  the  whole  area.  The 
special  purpose  of  Welwyn  Garden 
City  is  to  show  how  this  may  be  done. 
Within  the  home  counties  there  is  room  for 
a  large  number  of  such  towns,  sufficient 
to  meet  the  needs  of  the  population  for 
many  generations. 

What  has  happened  in  the  past  in 
the  London  neighbourhood  is  happening 
around  all  the  great  urban  centres  in  the 
country.  The  growth  of  the  great  cities 
could  all  be  brought  to  order  if,  instead 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER    33 

of  suburban  building,  such  as  we  see  in 
the  building  estates  and  housing  schemes 
to- day ,  the  garden  city  principle  of  satellite 
town  development  were  understood  and 
applied. 

The  Definition  of  a  Garden  City 

The  study  of  Mr  Howard's  book  and  the 
two  garden  city  schemes  makes  it  possible 
to  arrive  at  a  definition  by  which  we  may 
know  a  garden  city  when  we  see  it.  If  a 
reader  of  the  newspapers  were  capable  of 
believing  what  he  read  in  them  he  would 
think  that  the  whole  of  England  was  in 
process  of  being  covered  with  garden 
cities.  There  is  hardly  a  district  in  which 
the  local  council  does  not  claim  to  be 
building  one,  and  unscrupulous  builders 
everywhere  display  the  name  on  their 
advertisements.  But  a  garden  city  is 
not  a  matter  of  a  name.  The  thing  itself 
is  nowhere  to  be  seen  at  the  present  date, 
but  in  Hertfordshire,  at  Letchworth  and 
Welwyn  Garden  City.  To  put  the  matter 


34    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

beyond  doubt  the  Garden  Cities  and  Town 
Planning  Association  in  1919  adopted 
a  formal  definition  of  the  term  which 
reads  as  follows  : 

A  Garden  City  is  a  town  planned  for  industry 
and  healthy  living ;  of  a  size  that  makes  possible 
a  full  measure  of  social  life,  but  not  larger ;  sur- 
rounded by  a  permanent  belt  of  rural  land  ;  the  whole 
of  the  land  being  in  public  ownership  or  held  in  trust 
for  the  community. 

That  definition  will  be  expounded  in  the 
rest  of  this  book  ;  but  before  it  is  begun 
there  is  a  particular  feature  of  the  garden 
city  that  I  want  to  consider. 

Land  Ownership  and  Town-Planning 

The  garden  city  type  of  town  as  exempli- 
fied at  Letchworth  and  Welwyn  Garden 
City,  and  as  stated  by  Mr  Howard  in  his 
book,  is  the  product  of  voluntary  action 
in  which  there  is  complete  unity  between 
town-planning  and  land  ownership.  The 
schemes  under  the  Town-Planning  Acts 
in  this  country  are  prepared  by  munici- 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER    35 

palities  in  respect  of  land  in  various  owner- 
ships. There  is  no  common  legal  interest. 
The  local  authority  prepares  the  plan  and 
enforces  it,  but  the  ownership  of  the  land 
is  not  affected.  There  is  provision,  it  is 
true,  for  an  owner  or  a  group  of  owners 
to  prepare  a  plan  themselves  for  submission 
to  the  local  authority  for  adoption  under 
the  Acts  ;  but  the  plan  on  its  adoption 
passes  out  of  the  hands  of  the  owners  and 
is  enforceable  and  can  only  be  varied  by 
the  local  authority.  In  the  garden  cities, 
the  plan  is  prepared  by  a  body  without 
municipal  status  and  without  authority 
under  the  Acts,  and  is  enforced  by  that 
body  in  its  capacity  as  owner  of  the  fee 
simple  of  the  land.  When  the  land  so 
planned  and  owned  is  co-terminus,  or 
practically  co-terminus,  with  a  local 
authority  area,  and  where  the  body  which 
prepares  the  plan  and  owns  the  land  is 
working  in  the  general  interest  of  the  public 
and  in  direct,  though  informal,  association 
with  the  local  authority,  a  position  arises 


36    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

which  is  greatly  superior  to  that  which 
exists  in  connection  with  a  town-planning 
scheme  under  the  Acts.  That  position 
is  enjoyed  in  the  two  garden  cities,  and 
could  be  realised  in  any  area,  not  already 
town-planned,  where  the  ownership  and 
development  of  the  land  were  in  the  hands 
of  a  voluntary  body,  similar  to  the  existing 
garden  city  companies.  The  superiority 
of  the  position  is  in  this,  that  the  plan  can 
be  more  flexible,  considered  in  closer 
detail  and  varied  with  greater  ease  than 
is  possible  under  a  formal  town-planning 
scheme  ;  for  the  voluntary  authority,  by 
virtue  of  its  ownership  of  the  fee  simple,  can 
exercise  more  extensive  and  more  readily 
applied  powers  over  the  land  than  those 
possessed  by  the  local  authority  as  such. 
If  the  local  authority  itself  actually  owned 
the  land  it  would  combine  in  itself  these 
powers,  subject,  however,  to  such  limita- 
tions as  govern  the  use  and  holding  of 
land  by  local  authorities. 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER    37 

Land  Values  and  Rates 

The  position  we  are  considering,  that  of 
the  dual  administration  of  a  town  area  by 
a  voluntary  body  and  a  municipal  author- 
ity, has  this  further  advantage,  that  it 
gives  a  control  of  land  values  that  cannot 
otherwise  be  exercised,  as  well  as  a  revenue 
for  the  community  that  cannot  otherwise 
be  secured.  In  Mr  Ebenezer  Howard's 
original  conception  of  a  garden  city  there 
were  no  local  rates  levied  on  the  inhabi- 
tants, such  rates  being  paid  in  bulk  by  the 
voluntary  body  out  of  the  rents  that  it 
received.  This  is  by  no  means  an  idle 
fancy.  The  ownership  of  land  gives  very 
considerable  powers,  and  the  ownership 
of  the  whole  of  the  land  occupied  by  a 
local  community,  if  of  sufficient  size, 
makes  possible  a  control  of  land  values 
which  properly  exercised  is  of  very  great 
economic  value.  The  power  of  town- 
planning  possessed  by  a  voluntary  body, 
such  as  a  garden  city  company,  by  virtue 


38    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

of  its  land  ownership,  is  the  power  to  pro- 
vide sites  for  shops,  houses,  commercial 
buildings,  factories,  etc.,  combined  with 
the  power  to  control  the  number  of  such 
buildings.  For  example,  shops  of  a  par- 
ticular sort,  public-houses  for  instance, 
can  be  excluded  ;  so  can  factories  of  an 
objectionable  type.  But  the  value  of 
such  a  power  is  not  in  its  negative  so 
much  as  its  positive  exercise.  One  of  the 
fundamental  activities  of  a  town  is  its 
function  as  a  market ;  it  is  a  centre  for 
the  distribution  of  goods.  The  land  values 
that  are  created  by  shops  are,  with  rare 
exceptions,  the  highest  land  values  it 
is  possible  to  create.  People  will  pay 
for  a  site  for  trading  purposes  more 
than  they  can  afford  to  pay  for  any 
other  purpose  whatever.  What  they  will 
pay  depends  upon  several  factors  ;  but 
one  of  them  obviously  is  the  quantity  of 
land  available  for  the  particular  purpose. 
Therefore,  by  judicious  use  of  this  power  to 
regulate  the  number  of  sites,  together  with 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER    89 

the  ability  to  decide  rightly  where  the  sites 
should  be,  the  voluntary  body  has  very 
considerable  values  to  dispose  of. 

At  Letchworth  a  shopping  and  com- 
mercial area  was  planned,  but  no  attempt 
was  made  to  regulate  land  values  or  to 
control  the  number  or  class  of  shops, 
though  public-houses  were  excluded. 
From  1904  to  1915  approximately  ten 
acres  were  let  at  Letchworth  for  about 
eighty  shops,  the  annual  ground  rents 
averaging  £52  per  acre.  This  was  about 
three  times  the  average  ground  rent 
of  industrial  sites,  and  double  the  rent 
of  residential  sites.  It  was  probably 
a  fair  market  value  at  the  time  of  dis- 
posal ;  but  it  did  not  represent  anything 
in  the  nature  of  the  monopoly  value. 
Sites  were  available  for  all  who  chose  to 
take  them,  so  that  the  monopoly  value 
was  ignored  by  the  company.  That  there 
was  something  in  the  nature  of  a  monoply 
value,  which  went  to  the  lessees,  is  arguable, 
because  the  number  of  shop  sites  in  a  new 


40    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

town  must  necessarily  be  limited ;  for  there 
is  a  natural  economic  limitation,  as  well  as 
the  limitation  in  the  extent  of  the  shopping 
area  itself.  The  value  that  actually  arose 
out  of  those  shopping  sites  at  Letchworth 
was  enjoyed,  in  the  main,  by  the  enter- 
prising people  who  built  or  carried  on  their 
trades  on  them.  That  there  was  consider- 
able value  so  enjoyed  is  proved  by  the 
prosperity  of  the  shopkeeping  classes  in 
the  town. 

At  Welwyn  Garden  City  a  different 
policy  is  being  tested.  The  shop  sites 
are  being  carefully  regulated  with  a  view 
to  securing  the  ultimate  values  on  behalf 
of  the  community.  One  site  has  been  let 
for  the  purposes  of  a  departmental  stores, 
an  area  of  a  third  of  an  acre  at  the  rent 
of  £33  per  annum,  rising  by  stages  to  £66 
in  fourteen  years.  A  second  site  has  been 
let  for  a  restaurant  and  hotel,  an  area  of 
four  acres  at  a  ground  rent  of  £200. 
Further  sites  are  to  be  let  to  the  same 
bodies  for  similar  purposes  as  required  by 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER     41 

them.  Other  sites  have  been  disposed  of 
for  banks  and  other  commercial  purposes, 
but  not  for  the  purpose  of  retail  trading. 
The  restriction  upon  the  letting  of  such 
sites  gives  a  natural  monopoly  to  those 
who  do  acquire  them ;  consequently  it 
was  not  possible  to  allow  them  to  be  in 
the  hands  of  any  trading  concern  that 
would  take  advantage  of  its  monopoly  to 
the  detriment  of  the  town :  the  fullest 
and  freest  means  of  distribution  of  com- 
modities is  of  course  essential  in  the 
interests  of  the  consumer.  The  method 
adopted,  therefore,  was  that  of  the  estab- 
lishment of  companies  under  expert  man- 
agement, on  the  directorate  of  which 
the  land-owning  body  was  represented, 
and  with  provision  for  surplus  profits, 
after  payment  of  a  fixed  return  on  capital 
(which  is  liberal  in  these  cases  owing  to 
the  nature  of  the  businesses),  to  be  devoted 
to  the  purposes  of  the  community. 

This  method  of  dealing  with  shop  sites 
is  experimental  and  it  remains  to  be  seen 


42    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

if  it  will  satisfy  all  the  requirements  that 
have  to  be  met.  Time  may  show  the 
need  for  some  modification  of  it.  There 
is,  however,  no  reason,  on  the  face  of  it, 
to  suppose  that  the  present  arrangements 
will  not  work.  The  real  test  will  be,  is 
the  market  fair  to  the  consumer  and  does 
it  meet  his  requirements  ?  If  that  test 
is  satisfied  there  is  likely  to  be  no  other 
serious  difficulty  that  cannot  easily  be 
overcome.  So  far,  the  brief  experience  at 
Welwyn  Garden  City  has  shown  that  this 
system  tends  to  reduce  the  cost  of  living, 
and  has  brought  a  much  greater  variety  of 
commodities  within  reach  of  the  inhabitants 
than  could  probably  be  done  in  any  other 
way.  If  the  distribution  of  commodities 
to  the  consumer  is  well  done,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  of  the  other  benefits  that  will 
arise.  The  revenue  that  will  accrue  to  the 
community  will  represent  full  site  value, 
plus  monopoly  value,  plus  a  share  of  trad- 
ing profits.  It  may  not  be  possible  to 
split  up  the  revenue  under  these  various 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER    48 

heads,  but  there  is  no  need  to  make  the 
attempt.  The  effect  will  be  realised  by 
the  existence  of  funds  available  for  pur- 
poses the  cost  of  which  in  other  towns  has 
to  be  met  out  of  the  rates. 

This  is  an  extreme  illustration  of  what 
may  be  done  by  the  combination  of  town- 
planning  and  land  ownership  existing  in 
the  garden  city  type  of  town.  It  is  only 
possible  in  a  garden  city  in  a  new  area 
before  vested  interests  have  been  allowed 
to  get  established;  but  it  has  other  im- 
portant possibilities  which  will  be  more  or 
less  obvious.  Among  other  things  it  in- 
dicates a  development  of  local  government 
along  new  lines,  with  great  potential  benefit 
to  the  community  at  large.  The  posses- 
sion of  the  fee-simple  of  land  carries  with 
it  a  powerful  influence  upon  the  life  and 
activities  of  a  community,  varying  with 
the  relative  position  and  extent  of  the  site 
owned ;  and  its  possession  by  a  voluntary 
body  acting  in  conjunction  with  a  .public 
body  facilitates  the  extension  of  social 


44    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

activity,  without  interfering  with  existing 
individual  interests,  which  would  otherwise 
be  impracticable.  The  close  and  continu- 
ous co-operation  of  a  municipality  with  a 
voluntary  land-owning  corporation  opens 
up  a  field  of  experiment  which  may  be 
well  worthy  of  the  attention  of  political 
economists. 

The  Garden  City  as  an  Ideal 

What  bearing  has  this  upon  town- 
planning  in  general  ?  There  is  small 
prospect  at  present  of  local  authorities 
being  able  to  follow  the  example  of 
Letchworth  and  Welwyn  Garden  City. 
But  I  think  we  can  agree  that  the  garden 
city  is  worth  seeing  clearly  as  an  ideal  of 
town  growth  and  planning.  The  in- 
fluence of  that  ideal  can  be  brought  to 
bear  in  the  practical  work  of  preparing 
town-planning  schemes.  Hitherto,  the 
garden  cities  have  been  studied  as  pro- 
viding examples  of  road-planning,  house- 
planning  and  the  development  of  resi- 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER    45 

dential  sites.  But  that  is  a  small  part  of 
the  theory  and  practice  of  the  garden  city. 
That  garden  cities  are  mere  residential 
estates,  with  special  amenities,  is  as  unlike 
the  truth  as  the  idea  that  they  are  fanciful 
means  of  housing  industrial  workers  by 
manufacturers  of  a  philanthropic  turn 
of  mind.  Garden  cities  have  residential 
amenities  of  no  mean  order,  and  philan- 
thropic employers  can  be  quite  as  philan- 
thropic in  them  as  elsewhere  ;  but  these 
are  small  matters  in  relation  to  their  real 
significance.  The  garden  city  is  a  combina- 
tion of  individual,  municipal  and  industrial 
effort.  It  is  not  a  mere  plan ;  it  is  a 
creative  organisation.  Town -plans  do  not 
make  towns.  Dynamic  forces,  the  energies 
of  men  and  the  enterprise  associated  with 
industries,  the  pressure  of  population  lured 
to  a  centre  by  powerful  forces  of  attrac- 
tion— these  are  the  makers  of  towns.  In 
the  past,  towns  have  grown  up  under  the 
blind  influence  of  these  forces ;  to-day 
there  is  a  means  in  the  art  of  town-planning 


46    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

to  replace  that  heedless  process  by  conscious 
effort.  Butv  the  art  of  town-planning  is 
not  a  matter  of  adding  road  to  road, 
building  estate  to  building  estate ;  it 
means  the  possession  of  an  ideal,  the  exer- 
cise of  the  imagination,  by  those  who  care 
about  towns,  understand  and  love  them, 
and  have  the  power  to  make  them  what 
they  would  have  them  be.  That  is  the 
value  of  the  garden  city  to  these  present 
times.  It  is  an  idea  of  orderly  town  life 
that  is  being  worked  out  in  two  places  in 
this  country,  and  that  could,  and  no  doubt 
will,  be  worked  out  in  many  more.  More 
than  that,  it  is  an  idea  that  should  be  in 
the  minds  of  those  who  re-plan  existing 
towns  and  cities,  or  who  prepare  schemes 
for  their  extension. 


CHAPTER  I 

THE   TOWN   ITSELF 

A  Garden  City  is  a  Town 
BY  W.  R.  LETHABY 

THE  garden  city  is  a  town  which  exists 
in  proper  relation  to  the  country  round 
about  it — a  relation  as  between  heart 
and  lungs,  between  a  centre  of  community 
life  and  distributed  country  labour  by 
which  each  acts  and  reacts  beneficially  on 
the  other.  Town  life  is  of  very  ancient 
institution  and  became  highly  developed 
in  antiquity.  Towns  were  the  cradles  of 
arts  and  letters  ;  all  history  deals  with 
life  in  towns,  for  history  itself  was  the 
product  of  town  dwellers.  Town  life  in 
one  word  is  Civilisation.  The  great  pur- 
pose of  life  in  towns  is  to  produce  finer 


48    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

and  finer  types  of  civilisation  and  civility. 
The  very  objective  of  civilisation  is  to 
build  beautiful  cities  and  to  live  in  them 
beautifully. 

A  garden  city  should  manifestly  not  be 
too  large ;  but  concentration  up  to  a 
point  is  of  the  essence  of  its  being  :  there 
must  in  every  given  case  and  set  of  circum- 
stances be  a  point  of  maximum  efficiency 
beyond  which  a  law  of  diminishing  returns 
is  encountered.  The  city  should  be  in- 
dustrial to  the  point  of  producing  its  due 
share  of  commodities,  but  again  it  should 
not  be  industrialised  and  commercialised. 
Balance  is  the  aim,  and  a  garden  city  should 
be  balanced  in  all  its  functions  and  rela- 
tions. We  need  some  studies  of  the  laws 
which  govern  cities  considered  as  healthy 
organisms.  The  ordinary  "  scientific  " 
political  economy  hardly  anywhere  seems 
to  give  clear  indications  as  to  how  far  it 
"  pays  "  to  maintain  squalor  and  ugliness, 
disease,  disorder,  and  dirt. 

Like  most  "  material "  things,  the  town 


THE  TOWN  ITSELF  49 

is  founded  on  spirit,  and  we  have  to  begin 
with  the  formation  of  town  psychology 
and  civic  desire.  We  have  and  we  under- 
stand the  love  and  worship  of  home  and 
country,  and  we  must  seek  to  add  to  these 
city  reverence,  with  teaching  about  town 
duties,  and  even  some  ritual.  The  town 
is  a  sacred  thing,  and  we  are  starving 
the  children  by  not  giving  them  enough 
to  love  and  reverence.  If  they  grow  up 
too  brittle  something  will  necessarily 
crack. 

A  city  is  one  big  organism  and  itself 
a  single  work  of  art;  it  is,  in  fact,  the 
master-work  by  which  others  should  be 
judged — what  do  they  do  for  the  town  ? 
It  is  a  university  for  production,  a  cradle 
of  life  and  a  school  of  manners. 

We  town-dwellers  came  up  to  the  day 
before  yesterday  by  custom,  and  we  have 
had  an  interval  in  which  we  have  just 
drifted  and  gravitated  down  the  steep  way 
of  least  resistance.  Now  we  have  to  think 
out  aims  and  form  scientific  programmes 
D 


50    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

for  the  future.  Some  sort  of  productive 
economy  has  to  be  worked  out  to  supple- 
ment or  supplant  the  kind  of  political 
economy  which  too  often  has  been  a  mere 
apology  for  profiteers.  We  have  to  ex- 
periment with  the  means  of  producing 
high  quality  in  community  life.  We  have 
to  get  rid  of  the  irrational  and  learn  to 
see  untidiness  as  a  disease.  We  have  to 
teach  that  nature  and  the  town  have  to 
be  reverenced  with  a  conscious  personal 
love,  and  that  we  necessarily  fail  of  having 
an  essential  life  substance  if  these  elements 
are  lacking.  We  have  to  refound  art  on 
community  service  as  the  well-doing  of 
what  needs  doing.  People,  we  ourselves, 
exist  individually  in  a  medium,  and  if 
this  medium  has  become  thin  and  dry,  our 
lives  must  necessarily  wither  up  too.  Our 
towns  have  to  be  made  places  of  bodily 
health  and  spiritual  refreshment,  pleasant 
to  live  in  and  to  visit.  I  would  care  not  a 
pin  or  a  button  for  a  showy  city  as  such 
if  it  could  be  produced  only  outwardly, 


THE  TOWN  ITSELF  51 

but  I  see  that  every  town  is  a  picture  of 
the  minds  of  its  inhabitants.  If  the  town 
does  not  embody  rational  effort,  discipline, 
and  aspiration,  the  children  will  be  un- 
trained and  the  men  and  women  will 
be  unsatisfied,  hopeless  and  anarchical — it 
must  be  so,  for,  as  the  old  Greek  poet  said, 
"  The  city  teaches  the  man." 

The  first  link  in  this  chain  at  one  end 
is  to  train  for  an  active  love  of  the  towns 
in  which  we  live,  while  approached  from 
the  other  end  the  first  link  is  to  give  us 
something  in  our  towns  which  we  may  love. 
Greek  culture  built  itself  out  in  lovely 
cities,  and  these  cities  became  the  objects 
of  a  passionate  regard,  wells  and  reservoirs 
of  community  spirit  and  strength. 

Every  town  old  or  new  is  a  special 
problem  with  individual  possibilities  of 
developing  its  own  specific  character,  which 
I  may  call  its  civic  personality.  In  an- 
tiquity this  idea  of  a  personality  was  boldly 
conceived  and  expressed.  Athens  became 
Athene,  the  genius  of  Rome  had  a  magnifi- 


52    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

cent  temple,  and  even  here  in  Britain  a 
Roman  town  would  have  had  a  statue  of 
its  genius.  I  must  confess  that  I  should 
like  to  see  some  molten  images  of  London 
and  Leeds,  Birmingham  and  Bristol  set 
up  as  symbols  and  centres  around  which 
the  towns  might  build  up  their  pride. 
We  cannot  remain  strong  without  pride, 
we  cannot  long  be  proud  without  being 
given  something  for  which  to  be  proud. 
Every  town  has  to  emulate  its  neighbour 
and  set  about  developing  particular  pro- 
ductions and  special  types  of  industry 
and  culture.  They  should  race  for  the 
reputation  of  having  the  smartest  railway 
station,  the  most  efficient  electric  lighting, 
the  best  restaurants,  the  most  flowery 
park,  the  loveliest  suburbs,  the  most  rest- 
ful cemetery.  In  every  town  we  need  a 
civilisation  society,  a  council  which  would 
advise  the  town  council,  a  centre  for  civic 
patriotism  to  gather  into  strength. 

In  going  about  England  the  things  which 
have    shown    themselves    as    orderly    in 


THE  TOWN  ITSELF  53 

their  classes  are  golf  grounds,  race-courses, 
training  villages,  cricket  fields,  and  tennis 
courts.  In  all  the  serious  matters  of 
sport,  as  also  in  war,  it  is  seen  that 
tidiness  and  smartness  are  parts  of 
efficiency.  In  our  town  life  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  this  instinctive  feeling 
has  largely  been  pushed  out  by  pressures 
which  we  have  accepted  as  "  economic." 
Good  and  noble  things  have  been  done, 
like  the  provision  of  parks  and  better 
water  supply,  and  attempts,  sometimes 
quite  sad,  at  "  beautification "  are  fre- 
quently made  as  a  sacrifice  to  what  is 
supposed  to  be  "  art  "  ;  but  the  idea  of 
town  tidiness,  the  ideal  of  town  perfec- 
tion seems  nowhere  even  to  be  prophesied. 
The  aim  of  this  little  paper  is  to  suggest 
that  the  town  is  a  single  organic  unit 
and  that  it  must  be  seen  as  the  product 
of  a  human  group  and  as  a  work  of  "  art." 
We  cannot  shake  off  responsibility  and 
suppose  that  towns  make  themselves. 
We  have  come  to  talk  of  music  and 


54    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

drama  and  art  and  architecture  as  if 
they  were  technical  words  for  remote  ab- 
stractions or  exceptional  luxuries,  but 
what  is  civilisation  for  if  it  is  not  to  pro- 
duce poetry,  music,  beauty,  and  courtesy  ? 
These  things  are  nothing  worth  in  them- 
selves unless  they  have  a  use  for  life.  They 
are  far  more  than  luxuries,  amusements, 
and  excitements ;  they  are  the  natural 
forms  into  which  high  human  endeavours 
run.  Civilisation  has  to  externalise  itself 
in  disciplined  arts,  which  become  the 
registers  and  indices  of  the  quality  of  life. 
The  producers  and  their  products  set  up 
a  series  of  "inseparable  reactions."  Man 
builds ,  the  city  so  that  the  city  shall 
shape  his  sons,  for  a  city  is  properly  a 
training  place  for  men.  Without  order  in 
the  city  we  cannot  have  the  full  idea  of 
order  in  the  mind,  and  so  of  efficiency  and 
the  rest.  Art  is  not  something  extra- 
ordinary, it  can  only  properly  exist — as 
can  any  of  the  forms  and  products  of 
civilisation — when  it  becomes  ordinary  and 


THE  TOWN  ITSELF  55 

common.  We  destroy  it  by  isolating  it 
and  idolising  it  as  "  genius,"  for  genius 
is  only  the  product  of  a  wide  culture. 
Shakespeare  was  not  the  accident  of 
genius  so  much  as  the  inevitable  product 
of  an  age  which  was  interested  in  music 
and  poetry ;  when  everybody  was  writ- 
ing verses  Shakespeare  was  the  best  of 
them.  At  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury a  deep  and  wide  interest  in  English 
antiquities  and  scenery  culminated,  and 
Turner  was  born.  Turner  was  no  accident, 
he  was  the  greatest  of  the  topographical 
draughtsmen,  he  was  carried  farthest  by 
the  tide,  that  is  all.  Arts  and  civilisation 
are  produced  by  tides  in  the  affairs  of  men. 
Moreover,  history  shows  us  that  these 
currents  can  be  made  to  flow  by  conscious 
effort,  or  rather,  perhaps,  that  when  the 
idea  of  making  an  effort  arises  the  tide 
itself  has  begun  to  turn.  Pericles  made 
the  glory  of  Athens,  and  Charlemagne  and 
our  Alfred  deliberately  fostered  the  arts 
of  life  and  founded  cultures. 


56   TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

In  these  questions  of  town  building 
and  town  tidying  we  must  begin  from 
general  ideas  which  everybody  may  under- 
stand and  not  allow  ourselves  to  be  led 
off  by  vain  ambitions  and  professional 
catch-words.  Order,  cleanliness,  health, 
everyone  will  allow  that  these  are  desir- 
able to  an  imperative  degree.  We  must 
begin  with  better  street  sweeping  and 
more  whitewash,  with  efficient  dealing  with 
rubbish  (a  very  pressing  matter  in  even 
small  towns  and  villages),  with  control  of 
advertisements,  and  with  more  planting 
of  trees  and  flowers  and  tidying  up  the 
approaches  and  environs  of  the  towns. 

As  it  is,  we  compound  for  the  obviously 
right  and  necessary  by  a  dazzlingly  vulgar 
"  picture  palace,"  with  some  "  specimen 
of  architecture  " — an  example,  we  are  told, 
of  correct  style  produced  by  a  competi- 
tion of  paper  designs  in  great  anxiety  and 
excitement  at  the  moment,  but  scoffed  at 
ever  after ;  or  by  a  marble  or  bronze 
"  statue "  which  we  are  assured  is  a 


THE  TOWN  ITSELF  57 

"  work  of  art,"  but  which  nobody  wants, 
understands,  or  cares  for,  a  mere  idol  set 
up  to  custom  and  vanity ;  or  we  accept 
the  promise  that  some  commercial  exploit 
or  exploitation  will  be  ornamental,  and 
allow  most  terrible  tram-wire  standards 
to  be  erected  down  the  whole  length  of  a 
once  delightful  High  Street — ornamental 
indeed  !  That  means  so  much  the  worse, 
for  the  rule  is  thaq.  "  ornament  "  is  pro- 
perly emphasis,  and  things  like  drains  and 
mechanical  appliances  should  not  shout, 
but  be  quiet  and  unobtruding. 

While  we  have  railways  and  their  stations, 
these  must  be  made  to  function  in  an 
orderly  way — mechanism  should  at  least 
be  able  to  accomplish  that.  If  we  have 
factories,  they  too  may  be  made  in- 
offensive; indeed,  a  new  and  necessary 
science  of  psychological  economics  would 
demonstrate  that  they  could  not  be 
properly  effective  until  they  were  suf- 
ficiently humanised  to  be  pleasant.  If 
slag-heaps  are  necessary  products,  they 


58   TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

may  at  least  be  dealt  with  in  the  best 
possible  way,  and  the  seeking  of  a  best 
way  would  at  once  make  them  interesting. 
Art  and  poetry  may  always  be  found  in 
necessary  human  work  and  the  inevit- 
able things  of  life ;  if  they  are  not  so 
found  indeed,  that  which  passes  by  their 
names  will  only  become  another  burden  to 
existence.  Art  is  not  this  or  that  strange 
and  extravagant  thing  "  Lo  here  or  lo 
there,"  it  is  a  common  human  aptitude. 

Without  thinking  up  vainly  elaborate 
Utopias,  towns  organised  for  decent  life 
might  easily  be  imagined  and  economic- 
ally instituted  if  we  would  only  will  them. 
They  must  be  made  tidy  from  end  to 
end,  that  is  the  first  condition  of  such 
an  organism  functioning  efficiently.  Fac- 
tories, railways,  markets,  shops  may  at 
least  be  made  fit  and  reasonable  ;  public 
gardens  might  be  all  really  sweet,  fair,  and 
refreshing  ;  cemeteries  (although  it  is  bad 
taste,  I  believe,  to  mention  these)  could  be 
peaceful  and  dignified,  not  as  they  are  now, 


THE  TOWN  ITSELF  59 

harsh  and  flashy,  indeed  horrible.  What 
a  final  note  this  is  on  our  "  aims  in  life  !  ?: 
Children  should  be  trained  to  rever- 
ence their  town  and  to  do  it  services  by 
picking  up  strewn  paper  and  the  like. 
Every  town  should  have  playfields  and  a 
stadium  for  athletics.  Annual  festivals  have 
been  customary  in  towns  from  the  earliest 
known  days,  and  some  cultural  assembly 
like  the  admirable  Welsh  Eisteddfod 
should  be  instituted  everywhere.  Every 
town  should  have  a  municipal  theatre 
where  the  great  stories  might  be  presented ; 
we  are  becoming  a  people  who  only  know 
novelette  and  cinema  stories ;  folk-lore, 
hero-stories,  and  national  legends  have 
almost  passed  out  of  the  hearts  of  the 
people.  Now  stories  form  spirit,  and  this 
is  a  quite  tremendous  matter;  nothing 
I  can  think  of  is  quite  so  urgent  and  founda- 
tional  as  this  need  of  giving  us  all  a  common 
fund  of  stories  to  form  a  folk  mind.  I 
have  sometimes  thought  that  Shakespeare 
must  have  consciously  set  about  forming 


60    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

a  body  of  British  drama  beginning  with 
Cymbeline,  and  Coleridge  made  wise  pro- 
posals for  filling  up  the  gaps.  We  have 
infinite  riches  in  noble  stories  if  only  they 
could  be  presented  to  the  people  in  some 
penetrating  way.  The  epic  of  the  Norman 
Conquest,  for  instance,  is  already  cast  into 
acts  and  scenes  on  the  Bayeux  tapestry, 
and  it  would  only  need  the  collecting 
of  a  few  passages  from  the  chronicles  and 
sagas  to  turn  it  into  national  drama. 

I  am  eager  to  try  once  more  to  make  it 
plain  that  by  art  and  beauty  in  towns  I  do 
not  mean  some  few  out-of-the-way  things 
which  claim  to  be  works  of  genius  when 
they  may  be  mere  freaks  of  impudence. 
No  ;  when  beauty  is  scarce  and  shut-up, 
the  little  that  remains  necessarily  becomes 
weakened  and  even  diseased.  Beauty  only 
flourishes  as  a  common  good,  a  general 
health,  a  widely  distributed  right ;  it  has 
common  and  humble  roots  in  order,  peace, 
service,  joy  in  work.  This  last  phrase, 
"joy  in  work,"  looks  absurd  as  I  write, 


THE  TOWN  ITSELF  61 

so  far  have  we  been  carefully  taught  into 
the  belief  that  work  is  an  irksome  slavery 
to  be  done  by  somebody  else.  And  yet, 
what  is  there  worth  being  joyous  about 
except  work  ?  Many  even  yet  have  the 
work  passion  so  developed  that  they  have 
had  to  invent  specially  strenuous  forms 
like  football  so  as  to  be  really  jolly.  Art, 
then,  is  just  healthy  work,  and  beauty  is 
its  evidence,  its  complexion  and  smile. 

Some  such  ideas  of  town  vitality  as  I 
have  endeavoured  to  suggest  seem  to  be 
forming  in  many  countries,  and  we  may  hope 
that  this  is  one  of  the  works  of  the  time 
spirit.  In  Denmark,  folk  schools  have 
been  formed  for  bringing  national  story 
back  to  the  people ;  America  is  full  of 
"  movements  "  of  similar  kinds  ;  even 
while  I  am  writing,  an  article  written 
by  a  cultivated  modern  Chinese  scholar 
comes  into  my  hand  from  which  I  may 
quote  a  passage  :  "In  China  religion  is 
civilisation  and  civilisation  is  religion. 
But  let  me  explain  what  I  mean  by  a 


62    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

nation  with  civilisation.  The  ancient  Greeks 
and  Romans  were  great  civilised  nations. 
Why  ?  Because,  besides  governing  and 
fighting,  producing  goods  and  selling  them, 
they  also  produced  spiritual  things  such 
as  art  and  literature,  and,  what  is  far  more 
important,  they  developed  high  types  of 
humanity,  and  those  great  men  are  admired 
and  prized  by  after  generations.  The  chief 
end  of  civilisation  is  to  produce  men 
who,  as  we  Chinese  say,  understand  li-yo, 
courtesy,  and  music.  A  nation  is  civilised 
only  when  it  has  a  spiritual  asset  or 
'  realised  ideals.'  The  first  thing  you  must 
do  if  you  want  to  save  civilisation  is  to 
know  what  civilisation  is.  Civilisation  is 
first  and  above  all  a  state  of  the  mind  and 
heart,  a  spiritual  life." 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   TOWN   PLAN 

.  .  .  planned  for  industry  and 
healthy  living 

BY  GEORGE  L.  PEPLER 

WITHOUT  industry  a  garden  city  can  neither 
come  into  being  nor  continue  to  exist ;  and, 
therefore,  important  as  it  is  that  it  should 
be  a  healthy  and  pleasant  place  to  live 
in,  it  is  essential  that  it  should  be  on  such 
a  site  and  so  planned  that  industry  can 
be  carried  on  in  the  most  efficient  and 
economical  way  possible.  In  fact,  the 
term  "  garden  city  "  conveys  the  idea  of 
a  distinct,  well-balanced,  and  smoothly 
working  organism  of  life  and  labour, 
planned  from  the  beginning  so  that  the 
most  appropriate  environment  is  avail- 
able for  both  workers  and  works. 


64    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

The  intention  is  that  each  garden  city 
should  be  a  distinct  self-contained  town 
of  comfortable  size — not  too  large  to  feel 
at  home  in,  but  large  enough  to  contain 
a  diversity  of  industries  to  occupy  and 
provide  for  the  people  whose  homes  are 
there  ;  furnishing  that  enlivening  variety 
of  interests  and  that  mingling  of  classes 
so  essential  to  a  well-ordered  community, 
and  thus  to  make  possible  real  harmony 
and  unity,  the  lack  of  which  to-day  so 
much  retards  progress  and  prosperity 
in  all  directions,  not  least  in  that  of 
industry. 

In  a  huge  city  the  sense  of  identity 
is  apt  to  be  lost,  and  in  consequence 
the  ordinary  inhabitant  often  takes  little 
interest  in  local  government ;  but  in  a 
sizeable  town,  good  to  look  at  and  with 
civic  pride  outwardly  expressed  in  civic 
order,  a  man  can  feel  that  he  is  part  of  a 
definite  community.  Feeling  a  citizen  of 
no  mean  city,  he  will  take  an  interest  in 
its  good  government,  and  his  vision  will 


THE  TOWN  PLAN  65 

not  be  bounded  by  the  walls  of  his  work- 
place. 

The  garden  city  will  advance  healthy 
living,  not  only  because  the  houses  will 
be  placed  on  the  most  suitable  sites,  with 
plenty  of  space  all  round  to  give  free  play 
to  clean  air  and  sunshine,  but  also  because 
the  gardens  and  surrounding  agricultural 
belt  will  supply  fresh  and  pure  food  and 
milk  in  place  of  the  transit-soiled  articles 
to  which  the  average  dweller  in  an  ordinary 
city  is  condemned.  Also,  when  working 
hours  are  short  or  in  times  of  bad  trade, 
the  garden  will  afford  a  profitable  outlet 
for  energy.  The  absence  of  the  permanent 
smoke-clouds  of  the  large  city  will  mean 
a  purer  atmosphere — curtains  and  clothes 
will  keep  clean  much  longer,  and  the  house- 
keeper will  save  money  on  soap  and  be 
relieved  of  much  harassing  home-work. 

The  fitter  the  man  and  the  smoother 
running  his  home,  the  better  his  work, 
and  in  this  and  other  respects  we  shall 
see  that  in  the  garden  city,  pre-eminently, 


66   TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

healthy  living  and  industry  can  mutually 
thrive. 

In  order  to  realise  the  advantages  that 
a  garden  city  should  be  able  to  offer  to 
industry,  it  is  well  that  we  should  consider 
some  of  the  disadvantages  under  which 
work  is  at  present  being  carried  on  in 
many  towns.  The  ill  effects  of  bad 
housing  are  now  generally  recognised, 
but  the  same  analysis  has  not  yet  been 
applied  in  anything  like  the  same  degree 
to  industry. 

In  many  towns  factories  frequently 
exist  on  their  present  sites  not  because 
they  were  the  most  favourable  situations 
for  the  purpose,  but  because  the  land 
happened  to  be  in  the  market  and  was 
not  hampered  by  estate  restrictions.  I 
have  known  of  one  site  that  was  chosen 
in  preference  to  another  not  because  it 
was  more  suitable  but  merely  owing  to 
the  fact  that  the  vendor  had  a  cleaner 
title  to  his  land.  Elsewhere  factories  have 
been  properly  placed,  but  in  the  absence 


Note  jumbte  of  Works.  Public  Buildings  <&  Houses  to  muliuil  detriment.  tYorlc$  mixed 
trilh  &  confined  by  other  properly  -  tw  room  for  expansion- internal  communication, 
inadequate  if  awkward , 


FIGURE  V 


THE  TOWN  PLAN  67 

of  any  town-planning  scheme  domestic 
buildings  have  been  allowed  to  surround 
them,  consequently  there  is  no  room  for 
expansion  and  the  factories  are  approached 
and  intersected  by  streets  suitable  for 
domestic  traffic  but  quite  unsuitable  for 
factory  transport  purposes  and  with  foot- 
paths totally  inadequate  to  cope  with  the 
stream  of  factory  workers.  Apart  from 
the  constriction  suffered  by  the  factory 
itself,  this  haphazard  mingling  of  factories 
and  houses  inevitably  means  unsatisfac- 
tory homes,  with  the  corollary  of  discon- 
tent and  unsatisfactory  work.  Factories 
being  placed  on  sites  which  do  not  allow 
for  expansion,  and  other  buildings  having 
been  erected  all  round,  the  question  of 
lighting  is  often  one  of  great  difficulty. 
Artificial  light  has  to  be  resorted  to,  which 
not  only  is  an  expense  but  is  not  so  healthy 
as  natural  light.  Again,  there  being  no 
general  control  of  an  industrial  area,  any 
man  may  establish  anywhere  a  factory 
where  highly  inflammable  material  is  pro- 


68    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

duced,  and  in  consequence  his  neighbours 
may  have  to  pay  largely  increased  fire 
insurance  premiums  although  they  them- 
selves are  carrying  on  no  risky  trade. 

We  often  see  houses  on  sites  suitable  for 
factories,  and  vice  versa.  We  rarely  seem 
to  observe  any  co-ordination  between 
factories  themselves,  but,  for  example, 
allow  a  factory  having  no  need  of  canal 
accommodation  to  occupy  a  long  length  of 
canal  frontage,  excluding  heavy  industry 
for  which  such  a  service  is  essential. 

Apart  from  the  actual  carrying  on  of 
industry,  the  factor  of  rates  has  a  big 
economical  bearing.  In  many  of  our 
industrial  towns  the  rates  are  high,  which 
means  a  heavy  charge  on  industry.  One 
of  the  principles  of  the  garden  city  is  that 
ultimately  the  values  of  the  land  should 
revert  to  the  community  and  high  rates 
thereby  avoided.  Also  in  many  towns 
a  considerable  proportion  of  public  ex- 
penditure goes  in  remedying  past  defects 
in  housing  and  in  maintaining  the  victims 


THE  TOWN  PLAN  69 

of  such  defects,  in  street  improvements 
and  in  health  services  that  are  required 
because  the  towns  were  not  laid  out  so 
that  each  could  function  properly. 

Bad  living  conditions  result  in  ineffective 
citizens,  and  this  means  that  many  of  the 
fit  are  debarred  from  becoming  producers 
as  they  have  to  spend  their  lives  looking 
after  the  unfit,  who  therefore  not  only 
levy  a  heavy  charge  on  the  community 
in  costly  institutions,  provided  either  for 
their  maintenance,  correction,  or  cure, 
but  also  divert  to  their  unproductive 
selves  the  productive  energy  of  many  of 
their  fellow- citizens.  As  industry  can  only 
thrive  when  the  standard  of  production 
is  high  and  as  taxation  is  a  charge  on 
industry,  it  follows  that  every  step  taken 
that  will  save  the  necessity  of  the  unpro- 
ductive use  of  energy  or  of  public  ex- 
penditure must  be  a  direct  help  to  in- 
dustry. It  would  seem  that  an  obvious 
step  in  the  right  direction  is  to  establish 
garden  city  conditions. 


70    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

Road  traffic  congestion  is  another  factor 
of  waste  in  many  towns.  Those  who  ex- 
perience it  appreciate  at  the  time  the 
annoyance  and  waste  of  time  they  suffer, 
but  few  realise  the  large  waste  of  money 
involved  in  the  aggregate.  The  business 
man  held  up  in  a  taxi  can  watch  the  three- 
pences ticking  off,  and  knows  also  that  his 
wasted  time  has  a  cash- value;  the  man 
and  boy  in  charge  of  a  van,  or  the  clerk 
on  a  bus  in  the  same  traffic-block,  have  to 
be  paid  for  all  this  wasted  time,  and  the 
motor- engines  still  keep  running  and  con- 
suming petrol.  It  is  not  only  in  a  definite 
block  that  all  this  waste  occurs,  but  the 
constant  slowing  down  of  traffic  due  to 
inadequate  streets  makes  the  waste  con- 
stant. If  the  value  of  the  business  men's 
time,  of  that  of  their  employees  whose 
wages  they  pay,  and  of  the  petrol  wasted 
in  this  way  in  the  course  of  a  year,  could 
be  assessed,  it  would,  in  many  towns,  be 
found  to  be  a  serious  permanent  charge  on 
industry. 


THE  TOWN  PLAN  71 

Even  where  the  homes  of  the  working 
people  are  not  uncomfortably  mixed  up 
with  the  factories,  one  often  finds  that 
the  workers  have  a  long  journey  to  and 
from  their  daily  work.  Such  a  journey 
is  often  undertaken  under  very  uncom- 
fortable conditions,  and  this  again,  apart 
from  the  expense,  means  fatigue  and  waste 
of  energy  and  consequently  less  efficient 
work. 

The  tendency  shown  in  recent  years  for 
industrial  undertakings  to  move  out  of 
the  crowded  centres,  despite  the  cost  and 
great  inconvenience  of  the  move  itself,  is 
evidence  that  the  disadvantages  I  have 
referred  to  are  real  and  are  beginning  to 
be  appreciated ;  but  there  is  little  point 
in  moving  except  to  a  place  such  as  a 
garden  city  where  all  future  development 
is  mapped  out,  as  otherwise  the  old  diffi- 
culties will  in  course  of  time  reappear. 

All  the  disadvantages  I  have  referred  to 
can  be  obviated  in  the  garden  city,  which 
is  promoted  by  one  body  which  not  only 


72    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

controls  how  the  city  is  laid  out,  but 
actually  owns  all  the  sites  and  provides 
the  principal  services  and  amenities  that 
are  required. 

From  the  beginning  there  will  be  a  plan 
which  will  allocate  to  each  activity  of  the 
community  the  site  on  which  it  can  be 
carried  out  most  efficiently  and  pleasantly. 
Works  will  be  allocated  to  an  area  or 
areas  where  there  is  access  to  railway 
sidings,  canals,  and  good  roads;  and  the 
roads  will  be  so  designed  as  to  serve  the 
works  and  to  deal  particularly  with  the 
traffic  they  will  be  required  to  bear. 

The  frontage  to  main  lines  of  railway  is 
limited  and  sometimes  not  available  for 
siding  purposes.  Also  some  works  could 
not  use  to  the  full  an  entire  siding,  there- 
fore in  a  garden  city  arrangements  can  be 
made,  if  required,  for  a  communal  siding 
serving  a  group  of  factories. 

In  choosing  the  area  to  be  set  aside  for 
industry,  consideration  will  also  be  given 
to  sources  of  power,  water  supply,  etc. 


THE  TOWN  PLAN  73 

Many  works  will  require  large  supplies  of 
electricity,  gas,  or  water,  and  it  is  economi- 
cal to  place  such  works  near  to  the  sources 
of  supply  or  production,  so  that  the  large 
mains  need  not  be  of  undue  length  and  so 
that  the  load  will  not  come  on  mains  used 
also  for  domestic  purposes,  thereby  inter- 
fering with  the  even  continuity  of  domestic 
supply. 

Consideration  will  be  given  to  arranging 
factory  areas  to  suit  particular,  or  groups 
of,  industries  and  to  facilitate  co-opera- 
tion. For  example,  it  is  possible  to  house 
and  supply  power  for  a  group  of  distinct 
small  industries  in  one  large  building, 
such  small  industries  as  do  not  each  need 
or  cannot  economically  afford  a  separate 
factory  of  their  own.  Again,  many  in- 
dustries are  interdependent  or  use  each 
other's  products  or  by-products  ;  there- 
fore if  a  major  industry  becomes  estab- 
lished in  the  town,  adjoining  sites  in  the 
factory  area  can  be  reserved  for  what  may 
be  termed  satellite  works. 


74    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

Also  the  works  will  be  placed  where  they 
can  be  carried  on  without  interfering  with 
the  amenity  of  the  residents. 

As  industry  supplies  the  wherewithal 
to  live,  the  choice  of  the  best  area  for  it 
is  almost  the  first  business  of  the  town- 
planner,  but  he  will  always  have  in 
mind  the  amenity  of  the  residents,  and 
in  selecting  the  sites  for  houses  he  will 
pick  those  positions  where  life  can  be  most 
healthy  and  pleasant.  These  sites  will  be 
near  enough  to  the  works  for  communica- 
tion to  be  easy,  but  far  enough  away  to 
avoid  noise,  smell,  or  dirt.  This  can  only 
be  provided  if,  from  the  beginning,  there 
is  a  plan  of  the  whole  town  and  provision 
is  made  for  proper  inter-communication 
between  the  parts.  In  addition  to  the 
house  gardens,  there  will  be  every  facility 
for  recreation,  and,  as  well  as  the  play- 
grounds, the  open  country,  where  alone 
the  town  dweller  can  get  right  away  from 
his  daily  cares,  will  be  within  easy  reach 
of  all. 


THE  TOWN  PLAN  75 

So  far  I  have  had  principally  in  mind 
the  new  garden  city  erected  on  a  specially 
selected  site.  Such  a  project  has  many 
advantages,  for  it  starts  where  it  is  possible 
to  provide  from  the  beginning  for  the  best 
possible  facilities  for  efficient  industry  and 
healthy  and  pleasant  living. 

It  is  well  always  to  have  this  ideal  model 
in  mind,  because  only  under  the  conditions 
provided  by  a  new  site  can  the  best  type 
of  modern  town  be  built ;  but  that  does 
not  mean  giving  up  our  existing  towns  as 
a  bad  job  ;  it  encourages  the  study  of 
them  to  see  how  their  development  and 
reconstruction  may  be  economically  and 
scientifically  planned  so  that  they  may 
gradually  approximate  to  the  ideal,  and 
the  waste  and  discomfort  of  the  present 
gradually  remedied. 

I  suggested  earlier  that  a  man  tended  to 
lose  his  identity  in  a  great  city,  yet  the 
great  city  has  many  advantages.  When 
we  have  built  all  our  garden  cities  we  shall 
still  have  the  great  cities.  How,  then,  can 


76    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

we  incorporate  in  them  the  garden  city 
ideals  ?  If  the  present  tendency  of  in- 
dustries to  move  out  of  crowded  centres 
continues,  their  removal  will  leave  more 
elbow  room  in  our  great  cities.  This 
should  give  us  opportunity  in  our  plans  of 
reconstruction  to  provide  for  marking  out 
more  definitely  the  parishes  or  other  con- 
stituent parts  of  the  city  so  tha<t  the 
boundaries  of  each  may  be  clearly  seen  and 
each  may  have  its  visible  centre  of  civic 
life,  so  that  the  inhabitants  may  feel 
members  of  a  definite  community. 

Many  cities  may  enlarge  their  borders, 
but  in  doing  so  it  is  of  great  importance 
that  the  identity  of  the  absorbed  units 
should  be  maintained  so  that  their  local 
councils  may  feel  partners  in  a  big  con- 
cern rather  than  indistinguishable  pawns  of 
no  importance.  A  great  deal  can  be  done 
in  regard  to  this  by  proper  planning. 

The  old  city  wall,  while  giving  a  sense  of 
comfort  to  those  within,  was  intended  to 
appear  forbidding  to  the  outsider.  To-day 


THE  TOWN  PLAN  77 

we  require  a  boundary  to  be  marked  in 
a  way  that  shall  give  distinction  without 
conveying  any  idea  of  antagonism.  What, 
therefore,  could  be  better  than  a  belt  of 
open  land,  or  where  the  units  are  already 
largely  conglomerated  and  a  complete  belt 
is  impracticable,  a  small,  well-kept  open 
space  on  either  side  of  the  main,  roads 
where  they  cross  the  boundary,  with  per- 
haps stone  pillars  to  remind  us  of  city 
gates. 

Many  of  our  existing  towns  are  very 
pleasant  and  offer  opportunities  for  ex- 
tension into  veritable  garden  cities.  They 
possess  great  advantages  in  having  a 
history  and  traditions  and  a  civic  entity. 
Such  towns  wisely  developed  to  a  plan 
embodying  the  same  general  principles 
as  those  to  which  I  have  already  referred, 
with  perhaps  such  reconstruction  as  will 
make  the  new  blend  with  the  old  with- 
out destroying  the  historic  core,  may  be 
made  ideal  places  for  industry  and  healthy 
living. 


78   TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

A  garden  city  is  self-contained  in  a 
high  degree,  and  this  principle  applied  to 
existing  towns  means  that  each  unit  of 
civic  life  should  have  its  clearly  marked 
boundaries  and  be  of  a  comprehensible 
size.  It  will  then  be  possible  to  have 
large  groups  of  authorities  joining  to  form 
one  unit  of  local  government  to  plan 
and  control  inter-urban  matters  so  that 
each  part  may  be  developed  in  the  most 
efficient  way.  At  the  same  time  the 
general  plan  will  provide  for  keeping  the 
parts  distinct,  and  the  inhabitants  of  the 
local  centres  should  be  left  freedom  to 
plan,  develop,  and  govern  their  own  place 
with  as  much  individuality  as  they  desire 
to  express,  provided  that  their  schemes 
fit  into  the  general  framework. 

It  may  be  felt  that  in  this  paper  I  have 
given  too  much  attention  to  rather  in- 
tangible things,  which  on  the  surface  ap- 
pear perhaps  to  be  somewhat  unpractical. 
My  answer  is  that  the  difficult  times  we 
are  passing  through  strongly  impress  on 


THE  TOWN  PLAN  79 

one  that  if  in  the  past  a  little  more  atten- 
tion had  been  given  to  social  psychology, 
the  lives  of  communities  might  have  been 
arranged  so  as  to  run  a  great  deal  more 
happily  and  smoothly  than  they  have 
done  ;  far  less  energy  would  have  been 
required  to  be  expended  in  continual  re- 
adjustments, and  much  conflict  involving 
huge  cost  in  wasted  effort  and  money 
might  have  been  avoided. 

The  advocates  of  the  garden  city  have 
seen  that  industry  cannot  function  eco- 
nomically (that  is,  with  full  efficiency  and 
without  wasteful  and  harassing  friction) 
unless  those  engaged  in  it  are  given  the 
opportunity  for  healthy  living  both  of 
body  and  mind.  Their  ideal  therefore  is 
to  provide  towns  that  are  so  planned  that 
life  and  labour  can  be  carried  on  under 
the  most  favourable  conditions  possible. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   TOWN   AND   THE   BEST   SIZE   FOR 
GOOD    SOCIAL   LIFE 

.  .  .  of  a  size  that  makes  possible  a  full 
measure  of  social  Iife9  but  not  larger 

BY  RAYMOND  UNWIN 

THE  garden  city  should  be  a  town  of 
limited  size.  This  is  one  of  the  prin- 
ciples associated  with  the  term.  The  limit 
suggested  in  the  heading  to  this  chapter 
would  allow  the  size  of  the  city  to  be 
sufficient  to  render  the  enjoyment  of  a 
full  measure  of  social  life  and  culture 
possible  to  its  citizens,  but  would  not 
allow  that  it  should  grow  much  larger  than 
is  needed  to  secure  this  end.  There  is  an 
implication  in  this  that  the  disadvantages 
of  town  life  as  compared  with  country  life 

80 


BEST  SIZE  FOR  SOCIAL  LIFE    81 

may  be  more  than  balanced  by  the  ad- 
vantages to  be  gained  from  the  greater 
degree  of  economic  organisation,  social 
life,  and  human  fellowship  which  can  be 
enjoyed  in  the  town  ;  but  that  so  soon  as 
a  town  reaches  the  size  which  will  give 
full  opportunity  for  the  realisation  of  such 
social  life,  any  further  increase  in  size  will 
be  likely  to  aggravate  the  disadvantages 
without  increasing  to  a  corresponding 
extent  the  opportunities  for  fuller  life. 
Consequently  it  seems  better  to  add  to 
the  number  of  towns  rather  than  allow 
them  to  grow  beyond  this  limit.  This  may 
be  said  generally  to  be  the  garden  city 
policy,  and  it  raises  for  consideration  two 
questions,  namely,  what  is  the  desirable 
size  for  a  town,  and  how  far  is  the  limita- 
tion of  towns  to  that  desirable  size  prac- 
ticable ?  It  must  be  recognised  that  there 
can  be  no  one  exact  size  which  would  be 
the  most  desirable  in  all  circumstances. 

In  considering  the  size  of  a  city  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  best  social  or 
F 


82    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

cultural  unit,  it  would  be  neither  possible 
nor  desirable  to  ignore  the  underlying 
economic  conditions  ;  these  vary  materi- 
ally in  their  effect  both  on  the  actual  size 
for  the  best  economic  unit  and  on  the  class 
of  population,  which  is  an  important  con- 
sideration in  regard  to  the  best  social  unit. 
There  are,  for  example,  industrial  concerns 
which  it  has  proved  an  economic  advan- 
tage to  develop  on  so  large  a  scale  that 
they  employ  sufficient  people  to  represent 
the  normal  working  population  of  a  city 
containing  from  80,000  to  100,000  in- 
habitants. It  is  undesirable  that  a  city 
should  consist  entirely  of  a  population 
interested  in  and  dependent  upon  one  in- 
dustrial concern.  Economically  it  is  very 
dangerous,  and  socially  it  must  have  a 
tendency  to  a  narrow  and  one-sided  out- 
look on  the  part  of  the  citizens.  The 
social  disadvantage  has  been  particularly 
apparent  in  some  large  colliery  towns 
where  there  is  comparatively  little  variety 
in  the  character  of  employment  afforded 


BEST  SIZE  FOR  SOCIAL  LIFE    83 

by  the  single  industry,  where  it  is  par- 
ticularly difficult  to  develop  any  social 
life  and  culture  having  a  wider  basis  of 
interest  than  the  pits  and  their  working. 
If  decided  economic  advantage  is  per- 
manently to  be  associated  with  industrial 
undertakings  on  the  scale  which  requires 
from  10,000  to  20,000  workers,  we  must 
expect  that  there  will  be  numerous  cases 
in  which  a  limit  of  population  that  might 
be  most  advantageous  for  a  city  depending 
on  mixed  industries  would  be  altogether 
too  small  to  give  the  full  social  and  cul- 
tural advantages  aimed  at.  The  difficulty 
of  the  very  large  industry  might,  no  doubt, 
be  met  to  some  extent  by  the  grouping 
of  cities  of  smaller  size,  so  that  several 
of  them  might  be  sufficiently  near  to  serve 
one  of  these  large  industrial  undertakings, 
in  addition  to  some  mixed  industries  of 
their  own,  and  in  this  way  the  dilution  of 
the  population  dependent  on  one  industry 
could  be  secured  without  requiring  a  city 
unit  of  abnormal  size. 


84    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

There  are  conditions  varying  consider- 
ably in  different  places  which  may  affect 
the  best  unit  of  size  for  a  town  from  the 
economic  point  of  view.  There  is  usually 
some  unit  for  a  city  population  for  which 
the  various  necessary  services,  such  as 
transport  or  water-supply,  can  be  pro- 
vided at  the  least  cost  per  head  of  popula- 
tion ;  and  if  the  town  grows  much  beyond 
the  size  of  that  unit  the  cost  may  increase. 
For  instance,  to  sink  wells  to  secure  a 
water-supply  for  each  house  would  be 
very  costly,  and  it  would  usually  be  much 
cheaper  per  head  to  provide  an  adequate 
water-supply  for  a  population  of  50,000 
or  100,000  people ;  but  at  some  such 
figure  the  water  available  in  the  immediate 
neighbourhood  may  be  exhausted  and  the 
supplies  necessary  for  a  further  increase 
of  population  may  only  be  obtainable  at 
a  greatly  increased  cost.  It  is  found  that 
in  cities  like  New  York  to  increase  the 
supply  of  water  to  meet  its  growing  popula- 
tion may  cost  four  or  five  times  as  much  per 


BEST  SIZE  FOR  SOCIAL  LIFE    85 

head  as  formerly  was  the  case.  Not  only 
is  this  true,  but  the  needs  of  the  popula- 
tion in  some  cases  show  a  high  ratio  of 
relative  increase  as  compared  with  the 
numbers.  This  applies  notably  to  pas- 
senger traffic  facilities  ;  the  total  number 
of  journeys,  or  the  average  number  of 
journeys  per  head  of  population,  seem  to 
increase  in  large  cities  faster  than  the 
square  of  the  increase  of  population.  If, 
in  addition  to  this,  the  cost  per  head  of 
providing  traffic  facilities  increases,  as  it 
undoubtedly  does  with  the  increase  in  the 
size  of  the  city,  we  have  a  considerable 
total  increase  in  the  cost  of  assisting 
citizens  to  move  about  arising  from  an 
increase  of  population  beyond  the  most 
economical  unit.  Mr  John  Lothrop  has 
recently  stated  that  while  New  York  was 
increasing  in  population  about  30  per  cent., 
the  cost  of  installing  traffic  facilities  in- 
creased about  400  per  cent.  There  are 
other  facilities — the  telephone  is  perhaps 
the  most  obvious — in  which  the  increased 


86    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

population  necessarily  so  complicates  a 
system  that  the  cost  per  head  tends  to 
increase  with  the  increased  population, 
although  it  is  true  that  the  opportunities 
given  to  each  subscriber  are  enormously 
greater.  These  may,  however,  be  oppor- 
tunities which  the  majority  of  subscribers 
do  not  utilise.  The  number  of  friends 
with  whom  any  subscriber  ordinarily  com- 
municates is  probably  not  much  greater 
in  London  than  it  would  be  in  a  town 
of  50,000  inhabitants,  but  as  the  head  of 
the  American  Telephone  and  Telegraph 
recently  is  reported  to  have  said  : 

We  deliver  to  each  telephone  patron  here  in  New 
York  City  hundreds  of  thousands  of  telephone  con- 
nections, whereas  in  a  small  city  we  would  deliver 
only  a  few  thousands  of  connections.  That  is  one 
reason  why  we  must  have  more  per  telephone  here 
in  New  York  than  in  a  city  of  moderate  size. 

These  increasing  costs  tend  to  make  the 
great  city  uneconomical  as  a  unit  of  popula- 
tion. At  the  same  time  it  must  be  re- 
cognised that  the  increased  size  of  the  unit 


BEST  SIZE  FOR  SOCIAL  LIFE    87 

of  population  very  greatly  enhances  the 
opportunities  of  gain  to  the  fortunate 
among  large  sections  of  the  trading  and 
professional  citizens,  and  this  is  no  doubt 
the  reason  why,  in  spite  of  much  economic 
difficulty,  our  great  cities  continue  to 
grow.  It  is,  however,  by  no  means  clear 
that  the  increase  of  economic  or  financial 
opportunity  to  these  individuals  applies 
to  the  population  generally  ;  and,  to  some 
extent  at  least,  the  general  population  is 
probably  bearing  the  cost  of  the  increase 
of  size  beyond  the  most  economic  unit, 
while  the  advantages  of  that  increase 
are  going  mainly  to  a  limited  number  of 
successful  traders.  The  opportunities  for 
gain  for  all  the  population  may  be  in- 
creased ;  at  the  same  time  it  may  be 
equally  true  that  the  life  of  the  majority 
is  rendered  harder,  and  that  only  the 
minority  really  enjoy  the  advantages.  If 
this  be  the  case,  it  would  seem  that  life 
in  the  overgrown  towns  has  become  some- 
thing of  a  gamble,  and  results  in  sacrificing 


88    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

the  welfare  of  the  majority  of  citizens 
to  increase  the  winnings  of  those  who 
are  fortunate  in  what  may  perhaps  be 
called  the  city  sweepstake.  It  is  very 
important  that  we  recognise  clearly  the 
distinction  between  economic  advantages 
which  are  shared  by  the  whole  population, 
due  to  their  living  and  working  together, 
and  opportunities  for  greater  individual 
gain  which  are  afforded  to  a  limited  number 
as  the  result  of  bringing  an  ever-increasing 
population  within  reach  of  their  activities. 
The  former  is  a  permanent  force  conferring 
a  general  advantage  and  giving  a  more 
generous  economic  basis  upon  which  life 
and  culture  may  flourish.  The  second 
has  no  such  general  economic  value.  It 
merely  introduces  into  the  economic  basis 
a  larger  element  of  uncertainty  and  a  more 
unequal  distribution  of  advantages.  The 
subject  of  the  economic  efficiency  of  towns 
of  different  size  has  not  received  such 
study  as  would  enable  any  definite  figures 
to  be  fixed  for  the  average  size  that  would 


BEST  SIZE  FOR  SOCIAL  LIFE    89 

give  to  every  citizen  a  supply  of  the 
necessary  services  and  conveniences  at  the 
least  cost  in  labour  per  head  of  popula- 
tion. It  is  most  desirable  that  this  subject 
should  receive  more  careful  investigation, 
and  that  some  realisation  by  the  whole  of 
the  citizens  of  what  it  may  cost  them 
per  head  if  they  allow  their  cities  to  go 
on  growing  indefinitely  should  be  made 
possible. 

Economic  efficiency  is  a  factor  of  im- 
portance because  it  must  be  the  basis  of 
social  life,  but  it  cannot  be  considered 
alone.  There  are  many  advantages  in 
city  life,  and  also  many  disadvantages 
— social,  educational,  and  hygienic — the 
securing  or  avoiding  of  which  may  be  well 
worth  some  sacrifice  on  the  economic 
plane,  should  that  be  called  for.  It  is 
desirable,  therefore,  to  consider  the  ques- 
tion of  size  independently  from  the  point 
of  view  of  social  life  and  culture.  We 
have  already  seen  that  there  can  be  no 
one  ideal  limit  of  number  to  afford  the  best 


90    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

social  opportunities,  because  this  number 
will  vary  with  the  variety  of  employment 
available  and  other  factors  bearing  upon 
the  character  and  average  level  of  education 
of  the  population.  No  exact  figure  either 
can  represent  the  most  economical  unit, 
the  one,  that  is,  which  will  give  the  greatest 
number  of  conveniences  and  opportunities 
to  the  whole  population  with  the  least 
expenditure  of  time  and  labour.  An  ex- 
amination of  both  the  problems  will  show 
a  certain  range  of  limits  rather  than  any 
particular  limit.  One  may  expect  to  find 
that,  both  economically  and  socially,  in- 
creasing population  will  clearly  show  im- 
proved efficiency  and  opportunities  up 
to  a  certain  figure,  as,  e.g.,  50,000 ;  that 
according  to  circumstances  the  improve- 
ment may  continue  in  one  or  both  up  to 
about  75,000  ;  and  that  thereafter  there 
might  be  a  slight  diminution  in  efficiency 
varying  according  to  circumstances  which 
would  become  marked  at  about  150,000 
inhabitants ;  and  that  for  given  circum- 


BEST  SIZE  FOR  SOCIAL  LIFE    91 

stances  the  most  satisfactory  and  efficient 
size  might  lie  somewhere  between  50,000 
and  100,000  population.  In  one  case  it 
might  easily  happen  that  the  full  cultural 
opportunities  would  be  reached  at  50,000, 
whereas  the  full  economic  efficiency  was 
only  reached  at  100,000  ;  and  it  should  be 
recognised  that  the  economic  efficiency 
is  so  important  as  a  basis  of  social  and 
cultural  opportunities  that  within  limits 
which  did  not  appreciably  injure  the  social 
efficiency  of  the  community  it  would  be 
difficult,  and  perhaps  from  the  practical 
point  of  view  impossible,  to  limit  the  size 
of  a  city  to  a  less  figure  than  would  re- 
present full  economic  efficiency.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  it  were  found  that  the  most 
economical  point  indicated  a  smaller  city 
than  that  which  would  give  full  cultural 
opportunities,  it  might  well  be  worth 
while  for  the  citizens  to  make  some  sacri- 
fice to  secure  the  greater  opportunities. 
From  cities  of  50,000  to  cities  which  are 
numbered  in  millions  there  is  such  an 


92    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

enormous  range  of  size  that  it  is  difficult 
to  find  a  limiting  figure ;  but  so  great  a 
student  of  men  and  life  as  Lord  Bryce, 
than  whom  few  men  could  be  quoted  who 
would  set  a  higher  value  on  the  oppor- 
tunities of  culture,  has  suggested  that  the 
desirable  size  for  a  city  would  be  from 
50,000  to  70,000  people,  and  that  it  is 
doubtful  whether  cultural  advantages  of 
any  kind  will  result  from  cities  over  100,000 
in  population  which  could  compensate 
for  the  sacrifices  which  they  must  entail. 

It  is  worth  while  to  examine  a  few  of 
the  conditions  of  life,  taking  the  smallest 
number  mentioned.  To  begin  with  edu- 
cation ;  in  a  city  with  a  population  of 
50,000  there  would  be  approximately  10,000 
within  the  ages  devoted  to  education. 
This  would  involve  a  staff  of  300  to  400 
teachers  at  least.  While  such  a  popula- 
tion might  not  itself  afford  the  specialised 
opportunities  for  study  and  instruction  on 
a  university  level,  it  is  clear  that  there 
would  be  a  sufficient  number  of  scholars 


BEST  SIZE  FOR  SOCIAL  LIFE    93 

and  teachers  to  allow  very  efficient  or- 
ganisation of  education  and  provide  for 
an  ample  variety  of  accomplishment.  In 
this  country  boroughs  having  a  popula- 
tion of  10,000  and  urban  districts  having 
a  population  of  20,000  are  recognised  as 
Educational  Authorities  both  for  element- 
ary and  secondary  purposes  ;  and  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  any  ordinary 
town  of  a  mixed  population  numbering 
from  50,000  to  75,000,  which  would  in- 
clude places  like  Chester,  Exeter,  Lincoln, 
York,  Dudley,  or  Burton-on-Trent,  could 
provide  educational  facilities  which,  as 
regards  elementary  and  secondary  educa- 
tion certainly,  would  be  equal  to  anything 
which  larger  cities  could  offer  :  such  towns 
could  also  provide  a  considerable  amount 
of  specialised  education  both  technical 
and  artistic.  In  the  realms  of  higher 
university  education,  or  the  more  com- 
plicated and  advanced  branches  of  tech- 
nical training,  larger  centres  of  population 
might  have  some  advantage,  one,  however, 


94  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

which  could  equally  be  secured  by  groups 
of  towns  of  the  size  mentioned.  Indeed, 
many  of  the  most  advanced  teaching 
centres  are  not  found  in  large  towns, 
but  depend  for  their  support  on  students 
drawn  from  many  towns,  or  even  from 
the  whole  area  of  the  country. 

Looked  at  from  another  point  of  view,  it 
will  be  found  that  even  in  a  town  having  a 
population  as  small  as  50,000,  the  majority 
of  the  children  will  attend  schools  situated 
in  the  particular  part  of  the  town  in  which 
they  live,  and  will  only  in  their  later 
years  begin  to  attend  classes  which  de- 
pend on  the  whole  of  the  town.  As  the 
size  of  a  town  grows  this  decentralisation 
extends  to  all  the  educational  facilities, 
and,  to  a  large  extent  also,  to  all  recrea- 
tional and  social  institutions,  so  that  it 
is  only  to  a  very  limited  extent  that  the 
majority  of  the  people  in  a  very  large  town 
secure  any  cultural  or  social  advantage 
due  to  its  actual  size. 

A    limitation    of   the    scale    of   certain 


BEST  SIZE  FOR  SOCIAL  LIFE    95 

elaborate  entertainments  would  be  likely 
to  be  imposed  by  a  general  limitation 
of  the  size  of  towns.  The  very  expen- 
sive productions  of  plays,  operas,  and 
other  performances  which  can  only  be  paid 
for  by  a  very  large  number  of  attend- 
ances, continued  through  long  runs,  would 
not  be  practicable  in  towns  of  50,000  to 
100,000  population.  But  it  is  by  no  means 
clear  that  this  would  involve  any  ap- 
preciable loss  to  genuine  culture.  In  fact, 
there  are  many  who  consider  that  the 
conditions  imposed  by  productions  on  such 
an  extravagant  scale  have  proved  very 
detrimental  to  dramatic  art,  and  efforts 
have  been  made  in  recent  years  to  de- 
velop smaller  theatres  depending  on  local 
groups.  Already  in  some  Canadian  cities 
the  theatres  are  removing  from  the  centre 
to  the  suburbs,  and  we  have  in  our  own 
country  such  examples  as  the  Everyman 
Theatre  at  Hampstead,  which  is  a  theatre 
of  high  cultural  value. 

The  development  of  music  is  notoriously 


96    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

independent  of  the  large  aggregations  of 
population.  Many  towns  of  quite  small 
size  have  become  famous  as  the  homes 
of  musical  movements,  periodical  festivals, 
schools  of  instruction,  or  orchestras  reach- 
ing a  very  high  degree  of  executive  skill. 
The  beautiful  building  known  as  the 
Mozarteum  in  Salzburg,  connected  with 
which  is  a  great  teaching  school  and  an 
extensive,  highly  skilled  orchestra,  may  be 
quoted  as  an  example ;  while  the  musical 
festivals  of  Hereford  and  the  development 
of  music  and  pageantry  at  Glastonbury 
may  be  given  as  further  examples.  Both 
music,  the  pageant,  folk-dancing,  and 
many  other  forms  of  entertainment  are 
characterised  by  affording  very  large  op- 
portunities for  the  public  to  share  in  the 
preparation  of  the  performances,  and  they 
naturally  spring  up  in  the  smaller  towns 
or  in  definitely  localised  parts  of  larger 
cities,  where  there  is  sufficient  general 
intercourse  among  a  limited  and  varied 
population  to  bring  about  such  efforts  at 


BEST  SIZE  FOR  SOCIAL  LIFE    97 

self-entertainment  and  expression.  Such 
forms  of  spontaneous  entertainment  have 
an  educational  and  cultural  value  which 
probably  far  outweighs  the  loss  of  some 
opportunities  which  a  large  centre  of  popu- 
lation might  afford  for  viewing  highly 
specialised  performances. 

Each  element  of  social  life  could  be 
examined  in  like  manner,  but  enough  has 
been  said  to  suggest  that  the  value  of 
the  overgrown  town  because  of  its  greater 
opportunities  for  witnessing  the  greatest 
skill  and  talent  has  been  overrated,  and 
insufficient  allowance  has  been  made  for 
the  necessary  opposite  result,  namely,  that 
the  overgrown  town  tends  to  restrict  the 
opportunities  of  development  to  a  few 
fortunate  people,  whereas  a  number  of 
smaller  towns  would  give  a  more  limited 
opportunity  to  a  much  larger  number  to 
develop  their  full  capacities. 

As  regards  social  life  and  culture,  it 
would  appear  that  a  group  of  towns  of 
from  50,000  to  100,000  population,  having 


98    TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

good  means  of  communication  from  one 
to  the  other,  and  recognising  one  capital 
city  which  would  be  the  centre  of  those 
highly  specialised  activities  whiqh  must 
draw  from  a  large  population,  will  afford 
nearly  all  the  advantages  which  have 
hitherto  been  associated  with  the  very 
large  town.  At  the  same  time  the  limita- 
tion of  the  size  of  each  of  these  units,  and 
their  proper  arrangement  so  that  every 
citizen  would  be  within  walking  distance 
of  open  country,  would  give  those  oppor- 
tunities of  quiet  and  peaceful  contempla- 
tion which  are  so  sadly  wanting  to  the 
majority  of  dwellers  in  our  great  towns, 
who  must  live  in  the  midst  of  noise,  bustle, 
and  confusion,  almost  unceasing,  during 
the  greater  part  of  their  lives.  Though 
it  is  not  easy  to  define,  the  influence  of 
constant  contact  with  open  country  is  very 
great.  Pleasure  and  interest  of  the  most 
wholesome  kind  come  from  watching  the 
growing  of  crops,  the  rearing  of  animals, 
and  the  ever-varying  succession  of  the 


BEST  SIZE  FOR  SOCIAL  LIFE    99 

seasons,  each  with  its  special  beauty ; 
and  there  is  little  doubt  that  the  more 
definite  advantages  which  may  be  gained 
by  town  life  should  be  sought  with  the 
very  minimum  of  sacrifice  of  this  intimate 
contact  with  nature. 

There  is  one  point  which  should  not  be 
overlooked  in  regard  to  size.  The  higher 
the  general  level  of  education  and  intelli- 
gence, the  smaller  need  be  the  city  unit 
which  will  give  the  greatest  cultural  and 
social  opportunities.  If  the  whole  popula- 
tion have  sufficient  education  and  culture 
to  appreciate  music,  the  drama,  and  the 
higher  arts  of  life  generally,  a  relatively 
small  number  will  provide  the  highly 
skilled  few  who  can  be  leaders  and  in- 
structors for  their  fellows  in  the  different 
arts  and  sciences,  and  a  small  population 
only  will  be  required  to  support  the  neces- 
sary institutions  for  giving  expression  to 
these  arts. 

With  regard  to  the  second  point  of  the 
possibility  of  limiting  the  growth  of  cities, 


100  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

it  should  be  recognised  that  this  is  no 
new  proposal.  European  cities  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  even  up  to  comparatively 
recent  times,  were  definitely  limited  in  size 
by  their  fortifications,  and  frequently  no 
building  was  permitted  within  a  zone  of 
considerable  width  outside  those  fortifica- 
tions. The  desire  for  safety  proved  a  suf- 
ficiently strong  inducement  to  secure  this 
limitation.  In  the  case  of  more  modern 
cities  also,  examples  of  definite  limitation 
in  certain  directions  by  the  preservation 
of  large  open  spaces  are  common,  and  in- 
stances of  more  definite  limitation — as  in 
the  belt  which  was  left  around  the  original 
city  of  Adelaide — are  not  wanting.  If 
the  population  sufficiently  wish  for  the 
limitation,  there  is  not  much  doubt  that 
it  can  be  secured  ;  but  a  mere  negative 
policy  of  fixing  a  limit  would  be  likely  by 
itself  to  fail ;  definite  and  attractive  pro- 
vision should  be  made  at  the  same  time 
for  the  increasing  population,  otherwise 
the  pressure  of  public  opinion  would  be 


BEST  SIZE  FOR  SOCIAL  LIFE    101 

likely  soon  to  break  through  the  bounds 
which  had  been  laid  down.  Therefore  to 
provide  for  attractive  satellite  cities  in 
sufficient  number  and  conveniently  placed 
must  be  part  of  the  policy  of  limitation, 
and  indeed  will  probably  have  to  pre- 
cede the  fixing  of  any  limit  in  the  case 
of  existing  towns.  The  limitation  would 
naturally  take  the  form  of  the  reservation 
of  a  certain  area  of  land  around  the  city 
to  be  kept  free  from  buildings.  And  in  the 
first  instance,  in  connection  with  existing 
towns  the  belt  reserved  may  tend  to  be 
of  inadequate  width,  and  suburbs  instead 
of  satellite  cities  may  grow  up  nearer  to 
the  parent  city  than  is  desirable.  It  can- 
not be  expected  that  so  great  a  change  in 
the  policy  of  city  development  as  would 
be  involved  by  the  recognition  that  the 
ideal  size  of  a  city  lies  between  50,000  and 
100,000,  and  that,  as  Lord  Bryce  expresses 
it,  "  the  great  thing  is  to  arrest  the  growth 
of  cities  beyond  200,000,"  at  which  size 
we  must  regard  them  as  overgrown,  can 


102  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

be  brought  about  suddenly.  The  import- 
ant matter  is  to  secure  a  general  recog- 
nition of  what  is  desirable  and  to  work 
towards  it  as  rapidly  as  possible. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   TOWN   AND   AGRICULTURE 

.  .  .  surrounded  by  a  permanent  belt 
of  rural  land 

BY  SIR  THEODORE  G.  CHAMBERS,  K.B.E. 

THE  ideal  cities  of  the  future  will  not 
be,  what  modern  industrial  cities  have  be- 
come, purely  urban  regions  devoted  solely 
to  industry,  administration,  and  residence, 
existing  like  islands  of  town  life  in  an 
ocean  of  open  country,  with  the  interests 
and  pursuits  of  which  their  citizens  have 
little  or  no  conscious  interest.  One  of  the 
purposes  of  the  garden  city  movement  is 
to  break  down  the  artificial  division  of 
the  population  into  detached  groups  of 
country  folk  and  townspeople.  The  indus- 
trial penetration  of  the  rural  districts, 


104  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

which  the  policy  of  garden  cities  implies, 
will,  if  the  cities  are  properly  planned, 
be  of  material  benefit  to  both  agriculture 
and  industry  in  that  the  town  worker  will 
be  brought  in  touch  with  rural  pursuits, 
and  the  rural  worker  will  gain  the  advan- 
tages of  the  higher  standard  of  life  and  the 
superior  social  and  economic  conveniences 
of  the  town.  In  the  environment  of  the 
garden  city  the  outlook  and  sympathies 
of  the  citizen  will  cover  wider  ground ; 
urban  and  rural  interests  will  no  longer  be 
separate.  The  garden  city  will  create  a 
new  type  of  human  aggregate  which  will  be 
neither  all  town  nor  all  country,  but  which 
will  combine  the  better  features  of  both. 

One  of  the  lessons  of  the  Great  War 
was  the  need  of  increasing  the  supply 
of  home-grown  food.  How  nearly  Great 
Britain  came  to  grief  between  1914  and 
1918  owing  to  its  not  being  self-supporting 
few  seem  to  be  aware.  The  menace  of 
the  German  submarine  campaign  caused 
those  in  authority  some  of  their  most 


THE  TOWN  AND  AGRICULTURE    105 

anxious  hours  during  the  war.  If,  in  the 
future,  we  are  to  increase  materially  our 
home-grown  food,  it  is  necessary  to  attract 
and  to  keep  upon  the  land  a  very  much 
larger  proportion  of  our  population  than 
we  have  there  to-day,  and  in  many  ways 
our  systems  of  food  production  must  be 
modified. 

The  danger  to  a  State  of  the  depopula- 
tion of  its  rural  districts  together  with  an 
inordinate  growth  of  its  cities  has  been 
recognised  by  many  before  our  time.  It 
has  been  a  subject  of  concern  to  states- 
men throughout  history.  Six  times  in  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  efforts 
were  made  to  check  the  growth  of  Paris. 
During  the  reigns  of  the  Tudors  and 
Stuarts  the  emigration  from  the  rural 
districts  of  England  and  the  rapid  growth 
of  the  towns  were  sources  of  anxiety  to 
those  who  saw  ahead.  In  Germany  also 
serious  attempts  have  been  made  to  re- 
tain labour  on  the  land  by  preventing 
the  freedom  of  movement  of  the  popula- 


106  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

tion ;  but  all  legislative  methods  proved 
futile.  Direct  legislation  is  not,  however, 
likely  to  be  advocated  in  these  days  to 
remedy  the  depopulation  of  the  country- 
side and  the  congestion  of  the  cities.  We 
must  look  rather  for  a  policy  which  will 
promote  conditions  which  will  automatic- 
ally and  naturally  check  the  forces  which 
at  present  repel  people  from  the  country 
and  attract  them  to  the  cities,  and  set  up 
reverse  forces  which  will  attract  industry 
to  settle  and  develop  in  rural  surround- 
ings under  improved  conditions,  and  at 
the  same  time  not  only  keep  the  present 
rural  workers  on  the  land,  but  add  to  their 
numbers. 

It  is  interesting  to  note,  from  a  study 
of  the  planning  of  ancient  and  medieval 
cities  and  towns,  that  in  times  past  the 
proper  relationship  of  agricultural  land  to 
the  city  was  often  carefully  considered 
and  provided  for.  Sites  for  towns  were 
chosen  and  their  plans  prepared  with  due 
regard  to  this  relationship.  The  original 


THE  TOWN  AND  AGRICUTLURE    107 

nucleus  of  the  city  was  oftentimes  the 
market-place  which  served  the  economic 
needs  of  the  surrounding  agricultural  dis- 
trict. Most  of  the  older  county  towns 
in  England  were  the  centres  which  served 
the  inhabitants  of  certain  areas  for  the 
interchange  of  their  produce,  for  the 
performance  of  their  commercial,  social, 
and  administrative  functions — places  where 
people  met  on  certain  occasions,  coming 
in  from  the  surrounding  country  to  buy 
or  sell,  to  discuss  or  to  administer  their 
general  affairs.  The  great  cities  of  to-day 
are,  with  few  exceptions,  the  growth  of 
the  industrial  age,  the  result  of  concentra- 
tion upon  manufacturing  processes  within 
brick  walls.  They  are  modern  atrocities. 
The  fatal  divorce  between  agricultural  and 
urban  life  which  has  resulted,  and  the  con- 
sequent demoralisation  of  both  rural  and 
urban  communities,  is  a  nineteenth  century 
development  in  the  main,  and  it  has  been 
a  divorce  with  highly  important  and  in- 
jurious political  influences.  In  the  year 


108  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

1851  the  population  of  England  and  Wales 
was  about  equally  divided  between  town 
and  country.  An  aggregate  population 
of  about  9,000,000  people  lived  in  some 
580  towns.  About  the  same  number  lived 
in  the  country.  Even  at  this  date  the 
economic  interests  of  the  townspeople  and 
the  rural  dwellers  were  often  incompatible, 
but  the  equal  distribution  of  the  popula- 
tion did  not  give  a  preponderance  of  power 
to  the  one  or  the  other.  With  the  growth 
of  the  cities  and  the  gradual  increase  of 
the  proportion  of  townsmen  to  country 
folk  the  power  of  the  industrial  population 
was  not  felt  immediately.  It  was  largely 
counterbalanced  by  the  political  power 
and  prestige  of  the  landed  classes,  which 
enabled  rural  economic  interests  to  be 
upheld  against  the  growing  weight  of 
the  commercial  and  industrial  economic 
interests.  But  by  the  end  of  the  century 
the  growth  of  the  towns  made  the  State 
predominantly  urban,  and  with  the 
diminution  of  the  power  of  the  landed 


THE  TOWN  AND  AGRICULTURE    109 

classes,  due  to  various  causes,  there  is 
little  doubt  that  agricultural  interests 
suffered  neglect. 

At  the  date  of  the  last  census — 1921 
— we  find  79*3  per  cent,  of  the  population 
of  England  and  Wales  living  in  urban 
districts,  while  only  20 '7  per  cent,  were 
living  in  rural  districts ;  and  while  we 
have  to  note  that  these  terms  urban 
and  rural  districts  are  to  a  large  extent 
merely  empirical  divisions  of  area  which 
do  not  always  coincide  with  fact,  never- 
theless it  is  certain  that  this  separation 
of  the  inhabitants  of  a  State  into  two 
camps,  with  different  and  often  opposed 
economic  conceptions,  must  be  a  grave 
danger.  This  will  be  especially  the  case 
when  the  predominant  political  power 
passes  into  the  hands  of  the  industrial 
population,  many  of  whom  by  the  circum- 
stances of  their  lives  cannot  know  or 
appreciate  how  vital  is  the  maintenance  of 
agriculture  and  food  production  to  the 
well-being  of  the  State. 


110  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

The  segregation  of  the  people  into  these 
two  groups  is  also  permanently  injurious 
to  the  race,  in  that  the  cities  naturally 
attract  the  most  enterprising  and  the 
most  gifted  individuals  from  the  rural 
districts  through  the  superior  advantages 
they  offer  to  those  with  intelligence  and 
driving  power.  In  the  towns  these  in- 
dividuals tend  to  deteriorate.  To  quote 
the  report  of  the  "  Verney  ):i  Committee 
of  1916  : 

The  stability  and  physical  strength  of  a  nation 
depend  largely  on  those  classes  who  have  either  been 
born  or  brought  up  in  the  country  or  have  had  the 
advantage  of  country  life.  It  is  certain  that  the 
physique  of  those  portions  of  our  nation  who  live 
in  crowded  streets  rapidly  deteriorates,  and  would 
deteriorate  still  further  if  they  were  not  to  some 
extent  reinforced  by  men  from  the  country  districts. 
The  recruiting  returns  show  a  much  larger  proportion 
of  men  rejected  for  physical  reasons  in  the  large 
towns  than  in  the  country  districts.  If,  therefore, 
we  desire  a  strong  and  healthy  race,  we  must  en- 
courage as  large  a  proportion  of  our  people  as  possible 
to  live  on  the  land.  We  fear  that  the  growing 
tendency  to  move  to  large  centres  of  population* 


THE  TOWN  AND  AGRICULTURE    111 

a  tendency  which  is  not  confined  to  this  country, 
is  likely  to  be  more  and  more  stimulated  by  the 
development  of  town  attractions  and  facilities  of 
locomotion,  and  can  only  be  counteracted  by  a 
revival  of  agriculture,  together  with  an  improvement 
in  the  existing  conditions  of  rural  life. 

The  present-day  city  system  is  thus 
seen  to  have  a  definitely  dysgenic  influence 
in  that  it  acts  continuously  as  an  agency 
first  for  the  selection  and  then  for  the  de- 
struction of  the  fittest  of  the  race. 

Before  leaving  the  agricultural  aspect  of 
the  rural  belt  a  word  or  two  is  necessary 
as  to  the  treatment  of  the  land.  Gener- 
ally speaking  it  may  be  said  that  that 
kind  of  agriculture  should  be  carried  on 
which  will  best  help  the  city  itself.  If  the 
soil  is  suitable  a  considerable  area  will 
be  required  to  provide  the  milk  supply. 
Fruit  and  vegetables  will  have  a  ready 
market  and  should  be  profitable.  The 
near  presence  of  a  community  will  give 
intensive  cultivation  its  opportunity.  Low 
cost  of  transport  to  the  consumer  acts 
as  a  preferential  tariff  against  imported 


112  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

produce.  Poultry,  ducks,  pigs,  the  rearing 
and  keeping  of  which  demands  considerable 
labour,  will  provide  a  healthy  and  part- 
time  occupation  for  a  number  of  the  in- 
habitants of  the  city  if  they  take  sufficient 
trouble,  and  it  will  be  profitable  also  if 
they  do  not  pay  too  meticulous  attention 
to  the  time  they  spend.  But  whatever 
be  the  type  of  food  production  which  will 
suit  the  city  best,  the  actual  user  of  the 
land  will  be  ultimately  determined  largely 
by  the  character  of  the  soil  and  its  suit- 
ability for  one  purpose  or  another. 

We  must  now  turn  to  another,  and  in 
some  respects  a  not  less  important,  function 
of  the  rural  belt  of  the  garden  city.  The 
belt  is  necessary  to  protect  the  city  from 
encroachments  and  from  the  injurious 
effect  of  bad  planning  or  overcrowding  of 
houses  upon  the  land  in  its  immediate 
vicinity.  One  of  the  essentials  of  the 
garden  city  is  the  ownership  of  the  freehold 
of  the  entire  area  by  those  who  have  the 
control  of  its  destiny.  In  this  ownership 


THE  TOWN  AND  AGRICULTURE    113 

of  the  entire  area  lies  the  ability  to  plan 
the  city  properly  and  also  the  elements 
of  financial  success.  In  planning  the  city 
there  must  be  reserved  surrounding  the 
built-up  portion  a  protective  belt  owned  by 
the  city  but  not  built  upon.  This  belt 
will  serve  the  agricultural  needs  of  the 
city  and  fulfil  the  requirements  we  have 
discussed  in  the  first  part  of  this  chapter. 
The  fact  that  the  belt  is  not  built  upon  will, 
if  the  belt  is  judiciously  selected  and  if  it 
is  of  a  sufficient  width,  prevent  the  land 
beyond  it,  which  is  not  owned  by  the 
city  authorities,  from  being  built  upon. 
Thus  the  existence  of  a  rural  belt  round 
the  city  in  the  ownership  of  the  city 
maintains  a  very  much  wider  belt  beyond, 
which  will  extend  until  the  next  urban 
area  is  reached.  From  the  economic  and 
social  standpoints  the  agricultural  belt 
will  thus  be  practically  all  that  sur- 
rounding country  which  comes  within  the 
sphere  of  influence  of  the  city  or  in  any 
way  enters  into  relationship  with  it.  It 


114  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

is  this  protective  function  of  the  city's 
belt  which  will  mainly  determine  its  precise 
area,  its  position  and  width.  It  must  be 
widest  where  protection  is  most  needed. 
It  may  be  narrower  or  even  omitted 
where  there  exists  some  natural  barrier 
to  development,  such  as  river  or  marsh, 
mountain  or  moor.  Along  main  roads  or 
canals  or  avenues  of  approach  a  consider- 
able frontage  should  be  reserved — that  is  to 
say,  the  belt  must  be  wide,  since  develop- 
ment will  often  run  along  narrow  channels 
where  transport  and  ease  of  access  may 
encourage  demand.  Generally  speaking 
the  width  of  the  belt  at  any  given  point 
must  be  such  as  will  prevent  a  demand 
arising  for  the  land  beyond  the  area 
owned  by  the  city,  which,  if  satisfied, 
would  break  the  unity  of  the  city.  If 
the  best  conditions  are  to  be  maintained 
this  unity  must  be  absolute. 

The  actual  amount  of  land  to  be  retained 
by  the  city  undeveloped  by  building  will 
depend  upon  the  size  and  growth  of  the 


THE  TOWN  AND  AGRICULTURE    115 

city,  and  it  may  be  affected  to  some  extent 
by  financial  considerations.  It  must  not 
be  an  amount  so  excessive  in  its  relation- 
ship to  the  area  which  will  be  developed 
as  to  throw  an  undue  burden  on  the  re- 
sources of  the  city.  The  revenue  from 
the  rural  lands  will  probably  be  insuffi- 
cient to  meet  the  proportionate  interest 
upon  its  capital  value  at  the  rate  which 
the  financing  of  the  enterprise  will  de- 
mand. It  will  therefore  be  inadvisable  for 
the  belt  to  be  any  larger  than  is  actually 
necessary  for  the  preservation  of  the  town 
and  the  maintenance  of  the  rural  character 
of  the  hinterland.  Again,  the  rural  belt 
need  not  be  fixed  irrevocably  and  finally. 
There  must  be  a  belt  permanently,  but  it 
need  not  be  strictly  a  permanent  belt.  As 
the  city  grows,  and  provided  the  maximum 
limit  of  size  has  not  been  exceeded,  the 
original  belt  may  be  built  upon  if  the  city 
has  secured  the  freehold  of  land  further  out 
which  can  be  substituted  for  the  original 
belt  in  order  to  maintain  its  essential  char- 


116  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

acter.  It  is  in  this  maintenance  of  a  belt 
permanently  to  protect  the  city  that  the 
greatest  skill  and  watchfulness  must  be 
exercised  by  the  city  authorities. 

It  is  impossible  to-day  to  forecast  what 
will  be  the  population  of  the  ideal  city 
in  the  years  to  come.  This  will  depend 
upon  what  unit  of  population  in  the  future 
can  maintain  the  most  efficient  civic 
machinery  and  the  most  lively  civic  spirit. 
Nevertheless,  while  reserving  the  right 
to  extend  the  area  of  particular  garden 
cities  in  the  future  to  meet  changed  con- 
ditions, it  will  be  necessary  for  the  city 
architect  to  know  the  boundaries  of  the 
city,  and  yet  while  working  within  these 
boundaries  he  will  maintain  a  certain 
elasticity  of  mind  and  prepare  as  far  as 
he  can,  and  where  it  is  possible,  for  future 
outward  growth.  It  has  to  be  borne  in 
mind  that  the  further  the  city  spreads 
from  its  centre  the  greater  will  be  the 
area  available  for  development  with  each 
equal  extension  of  the  radius. 


THE  TOWN  AND  AGRICULTURE    117 

We  have  thus  seen  that  the  rural  belt  is 
one  of  the  most  significant  and  important 
characteristics  of  the  garden  city.  That 
it  is  indeed  so  essential  to  the  conception 
of  the  garden  city  as  to  be  regarded 
as  axiomatic,  for  without  it  the  garden 
city  of  to-morrow  would  not  be  radically 
different  in  its  nature  economically  and 
socially  from  the  cities  of  yesterday. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   TOWN   AND   LAND 

.  .  .  the  whole  of  the  land  being  in  public 
ownership  or  held  in  trust  for  the 
community 

BY  R.  L.  REISS 

ALL  those  who  have  been  associated  with 
the  development  of  garden  cities,  or  with 
propaganda  in  connection  with  the  idea, 
have  agreed  that  the  freehold  of  the  whole 
of  the  land  must  be  vested  either  in  a 
public  body  or  in  the  promoters  of  the 
scheme,  who  will  treat  their  ownership  as 
being  to  some  extent  in  the  nature  of  a 
trust  for  the  benefit  of  the  community. 
Where  the  promoters  are  a  company  this  is 
achieved  by  the  limitation  of  the  dividend 
payable  on  shares  and  the  utilisation  of 

118 


THE  TOWN  AND  LAND        119 

surplus  profits  for  the  benefit  of  the  town. 
Only  thus  can  that  full  control  over  de- 
velopment be  secured  which  will  ensure 
the  carrying  out  of  the  scheme  and  the 
safeguarding  of  the  interests  of  the  citizens. 

To  understand  the  reasons  for  this, 
it  will  be  necessary  to  discuss  briefly  the 
general  question  of  land  ownership  and 
development. 

The  term  "  land  "  is  used  both  in  practice 
and  in  Acts  of  Parliament  in  a  number 
of  different  senses.  Thus  it  is  often  used 
to  include  not  merely  the  actual  ground 
but  all  the  buildings  upon  it,  and  in  cer- 
tain instances  even  machinery  in  a  factory. 
For  our  present  purpose,  however,  the 
term  "  land "  is  applied  to  the  actual 
ground  only. 

Again,  the  phrase  "  land  value "  or 
"  value  of  land  "  is  also  used  with  a  number 
of  different  meanings.  For  our  present 
purpose  its  meaning  is  the  value  of  the 
land  apart  from  any  buildings  on  it. 
Generally  speaking  it  is  the  market  value, 


120  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

or  the  price  that  may  be  agreed  as  between 
a  willing  buyer  and  a  willing  seller.     There 
are  various   elements  in  the   making  up 
of  this  value.     First,  there  is  the  value  as 
a  site  for  building  purposes  or  for  a  re- 
creation ground  or  for  any  other  purpose. 
This  may  depend  upon  its  location,  upon 
the   beauty   of  the   surrounding  country, 
upon  its  proximity  to  a  railway  station 
and  to  shops,  upon  the  size  of  the  town 
and  the   amount   of  development  taking 
place  there,  and  upon  the  services  which 
are  provided,  e.g.  water,  drainage,  roads. 
This  "  site  value  "  may  also  depend  upon 
the  amount  of  other  land  in  the  market. 
Secondly,  there  is  the  actual  agricultural 
value  of  the  land,  which  depends  upon 
the  nature  and  quality  of  the  soil  and  its 
location  in  relation  to  markets  and  trans- 
port.    In  addition  there  may  be  a  sporting 
value,  and  in  many  cases  a  "  sentimental  " 
value  or  a  value  due  to  a  supposed  social 
position  attaching  to  its  ownership. 

For  a  long  time  the  social  and  economic 


THE  TOWN  AND  LAND        121 

effects  of  land  ownership  and  the  creation 
of  land  values  have  been  the  subject  of 
acute  controversy.  There  is  a  school  which 
believes  that  national  interests  can  only 
be  served  effectively  by  the  ownership  of 
all  the  land  in  the  country  being  vested 
in  the  State.  Others,  while  not  going 
so  far  as  this,  nevertheless  believe  that 
a  considerable  increase  in  the  municipal 
ownership  of  land  is  desirable.  Again, 
there  are  those  who  believe  that  land 
values  should  be  subject  to  special  taxa- 
tion, basing  their  case  upon  the  argument 
that  land  increases  in  value  through  the 
activities  of  the  public  generally,  and  of 
local  authorities,  while  the  economic  ad- 
vantage accrues  to  the  owner  without  a 
corresponding  exertion  or  expenditure  of 
capital  on  his  part. 

For  our  present  purpose  it  is  unnecessary 
to  balance  the  arguments  for  and  against 
such  proposals  or  to  lay  down  any  definite 
opinion  upon  the  broad  questions  in- 
volved. Whatever  opinions  may  be  held 


122  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

upon  such  questions,  there  are  certain 
propositions  upon  which  there  is  general 
agreement,  which,  together  with  the  results 
obtaining  from  them,  are  of  vital  import- 
ance in  connection  with  the  development 
of  towns,  and  particularly  in  the  creation 
of  new  garden  cities  or  the  extension  of 
villages  and  small  towns  in  such  a  way 
as  to  make  them  into  garden  cities. 

In  the  first  place,  land  is  aquasi-monopoly. 
There  is  a  limited  quantity  of  land  in  any 
given  country,  town,  or  place.  Moreover, 
within  each  town  there  is  a  limited  quantity 
of  land  suitable  for  any  given  purpose. 
The  land  monopoly  differs  from  other 
monopolies  such  as  arise  in  connection 
with  the  licensed  trade,  copyrights  and 
patents,  which  are  not  monopolies  be- 
cause of  their  inherent  characteristics,  but 
become  such  through  the  action  of  the 
legislature. 

In  the  second  place,  land  is  immobile, 
and  the  use  to  which  it  is  put  is  for  the 
most  part  a  permanent  use  and  vitally 


THE  TOWN  AND  LAND       123 

affects  other  land  and  other  people  than 
the  owners. 

As  a  result  of  the  monopoly  and  im- 
mobility of  land,  land  values  may  increase 
and  decrease  through  circumstances  over 
which  the  owner  often  has  no  control. 
It  is  true  that  the  value  of  land  may  be 
increased  by  the  judicious  expenditure  of 
capital  on  the  part  of  the  owner,  but  it 
is  also  true  that  it  may  increase  or  de- 
crease for  a  number  of  different  reasons. 
As  a  matter  of  history,  the  total  value  of 
land  has  steadily  increased  by  a  greater 
amount  than  is  represented  by  the  amount 
of  capital  expended  upon  it.  At  the  same 
time,  individual  bits  of  land  have  decreased 
in  value.  Thus  the  value  of  land  owned 
by  A  may  be  increased  or  diminished  by 
the  use  to  which  his  neighbour  B  puts  his 
land.  If  B  erects  a  well- designed  house 
of  substantial  size,  with  a  good  garden  to 
it,  A's  land  may  very  likely  be  increased 
in  value.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  B  erects 
a  factory  upon  his  land  or  sells  it  for 


124  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

the  erection  of  an  elementary  school,  A's 
land,  if  a  choice  residential  site,  may  be 
diminished  in  value.  Again,  the  value  of 
the  land  may  be  increased  by  the  action 
of  a  local  authority  in  carrying  out  a 
drainage  scheme,  by  a  railway  company 
opening  a  new  station,  by  the  discovery 
of  coal  or  the  opening  of  a  large  factory 
in  the  neighbourhood.  On  the  other  hand, 
its  value  may  be  diminished  by  the  local 
authority  locating  their  sewage  farm  or 
isolation  hospital  in  the  immediate  neigh- 
bourhood. It  may  also  be  increased  or 
diminished  in  value  because  the  town  in 
which  the  land  is  situated  is  increasing  in 
prosperity  or  is  decaying.  For  example, 
the  value  of  the  land  in  Salisbury  was 
increased  by  the  development  of  that 
city  during  the  Middle  Ages,  while  the  re- 
sulting decay  of  Old  Sarum  and  of  Wilton 
probably  diminished  the  land  values  in 
those  two  places.  Land  may  also  acquire 
a  special  value  owing  to  its  "  special 
adaptability  for  a  given  purpose."  It 


THE  TOWN  AND  LAND       125 

may  decrease  in  value  owing  to  "  sever- 
ance," e.g.  by  a  farm  or  a  building  estate 
being  cut  up.  On  the  other  hand,  two  or 
more  bits  of  land  may  be  increased  in 
value  as  a  whole  through  being  joined 
together,  e.g.  the  land  purchased  by  the 
London  County  Council  in  connection 
with  the  Kings  way  improvements,  which 
acquired  an  additional  value  over  and 
above  that  attributable  to  the  actual 
capital  expenditure  on  the  making  of 
new  roads. 

Another  effect  of  the  peculiar  qualities  of 
land,  and  particularly  urban  land,  is  that 
the  use  to  which  it  is  put  is,  generally 
speaking,  of  a  comparatively  permanent 
nature.  If  the  land  is  badly  developed  it 
often  can  only  be  replanned  at  enormous 
cost  (e.g.  slum  areas  such  as  the  Boundary 
street  area  in  Bethnal  Green).  Now,  as 
most  of  the  land  of  the  country  is  and  has 
been  in  private  ownership,  and  as  private 
individuals  have,  in  the  main,  considered 
their  own  interests  and  not  those  of  the 


126  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

community,  land  has  been  developed  in  an 
unsatisfactory  way  from  the  public  point 
of  view.  Our  towns  have  grown  up  gradu- 
ally without  plan,  each  individual  owner 
utilising  his  land  in  such  a  way  as  to  secure 
to  him  the  greatest  immediate  advantage. 
Broadly  speaking,  towns  may  be  divided 
into  three  categories  : 

(a)  Those  in  which  the  freehold  is  divided  amongst 
a  large  number  of  individuals,  the  owners  of  the 
houses,  shops,  and  factories  also  being  owners  of 
the  freehold  of  the  site  upon  which  their  building 
stands.     Typical    instances    of    such    "  Freehold " 
towns  are  Stoke-on-Trent,  Bradford,  Reading,  and 
Cambridge. 

(b)  Those  in  which  the  tenure  is  mainly  leasehold, 
the  number  of  freeholders  being  relatively  small,  and 
most  of  the  house  owners  holding  their  land  on  lease 
and  paying  a  ground  rent.     In  these  cases  the  actual 
freehold  of  the  land  is  owned  by  a  few  people,  in 
some   instances   a   considerable   proportion   of  the 
freehold    being    owned    by    one    owner.      Typical 
instances  of  such  "  Leasehold  "  towns  are  Cardiff, 
Eastbourne,    Sheffield,   Merthyr,    Oxford,    Burnley 9 
and  Warrington. 

(c)  Lastly,  there  are  a  large  number  of  towns, 
including  the  largest  of  all,  which  are  partly  freehold 


THE  TOWN  AND  LAND        12T 

and  partly  leasehold.  There  are  a  number  of  small 
freeholders  and  also  a  number  of  large  estates  where 
the  sites  have  been  let  on  lease.  Examples  of  such 
towns  are  London,  Birmingham,  Liverpool,  and 
Swansea. 


Generally  speaking,  planning  is  worst 
in  places  where  the  control  of  the  land  has 
been  split  up  among  a  number  of  different 
owners.  Each  individual  treated  his  own 
land  as  an  opportunity  for  making  the  most 
out  of  it.  There  has  been  no  kind  of  co- 
operation and  little  consideration  for  the 
public  interests.  Public  improvements  of 
various  kinds  have  had  to  be  carried  out 
at  considerable  expense,  whether  such  im- 
provement has  been  the  widening  of  a 
street  or  the  clearing  of  a  slum  area. 
Even  in  leasehold  towns,  where  the  freehold 
of  the  land  is  mainly  owned  by  quite  a 
few  people,  or  possibly  a  single  individual, 
this  has  to  a  large  extent  been  the  case. 
In  some  districts  of  such  towns,  however, 
where  individual  owners  have  owned  a 
considerable  portion  of  land,  they  have 


128  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

attempted  to  plan  the  development  of 
their  land  with  some  idea  of  public  ad- 
vantage. But  this  has  generally  been  done 
because  the  owner  has  had  the  imagination 
to  see  that  such  planning  was  also  to  his 
own  interest.  Examples  of  this  may  be 
seen  in  some  of  the  big  London  estates, 
where  portions  of  the  lands  owned  by  the 
Dukes  of  Bedford,  Devonshire,  and  West- 
minster, Lords  Portman,  Northampton, 
and  others,  have  in  the  past  been  laid  out 
in  squares  and  crescents. 

The  larger  the  area  owned  by  any  par- 
ticular owner  in  a  developing  town,  the 
more  chance  he  has  of  securing  good 
development.  Where,  as  at  Eastbourne, 
practically  all  the  land  is  owned  by  one 
person,  and  that  person  has  retained  the 
freehold  and  granted  leaseholds,  the  oppor- 
tunity for  good  planning  has  been  in  large 
measure  taken  advantage  of.  In  certain 
of  the  towns  in  the  West  Riding  of  York- 
shire, however,  where  similar  conditions 
have  prevailed,  the  development  has,  never- 


THE  TOWN  AND  LAND        129 

theless,  not  been  any  better  than  in  free- 
hold towns,  the  estates  being  developed 
to  secure  immediate  results  only  and  with- 
out taking  a  long  view. 

It  has  long  been  recognised  by  people 
of  all  parties  that  the  ownership  of  land 
should  be  subjected  to  certain  restrictions. 
Thus,  the  law  provides  that  if  a  man  use 
his  land  in  such  a  way  as  to  constitute 
a  nuisance   to   his   neighbour,  the   latter 
has  a  right  of  action  against  him ;  that  a 
man  can  only  develop  his  land  for  build- 
ing purposes  provided  he  complies  with 
the  building  regulations  and  bye-laws  with 
regard  to  roads  and   drains,  designed  to 
secure  that  buildings  should  have  reason- 
able access  of  air  and  sunshine  and  should 
be  properly  drained.     Moreover,  the  power 
of  local  authorities  and,  under  certain  cir- 
cumstances, statutory  companies  such  as 
railway  companies,  to  purchase  land  for 
public  purposes,  compulsorily  if  necessary, 
has  long  been  recognised  in  this  country 
as  elsewhere. 


130  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

These  provisions,  however,  did  not  meet 
the  requirements  of  the  case.  With  the 
increasing  recognition  of  the  necessity  for 
town  planning,  the  Town  Planning  Acts 
of  1909  and  1919  were  passed.  These 
Acts  recognised  the  public  interest  in 
the  development  of  land.  Municipalities 
were  empowered  to  prepare  town-planning 
schemes  for  the  unbuilt  portion  of  their 
area,  and  in  certain  cases  contiguous  areas, 
controlling  the  use  to  which  each  individual 
owner  might  put  his  land.  Such  schemes 
may  limit  certain  land  to  industrial  pur- 
poses, others  to  residential.  They  may  pro- 
vide for  restrictions  and  regulations  with 
regard  to  the  construction  of  roads,  the 
number  of  houses  to  the  acre,  and  various 
kindred  matters.  These  provisions  may 
all  be  achieved  without  a  local  authority 
purchasing  any  of  the  land  itself. 

Whatever  the  value,  however,  of  the 
Town  Planning  Acts  as  applied  to  the 
development  of  the  outskirts  of  existing 
towns,  they  do  not  fully  meet  the  require- 


THE  TOWN  AND  LAND        131 

ments  of  the  case  where  a  garden  city  is 
being  projected,  or  where  it  is  the  intention 
to  extend  an  existing  village  or  small  town 
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  a  garden  city. 
The  ordinary  Rural  District  Council,  which 
is  the  responsible  local  authority  in  such 
cases,  can  hardly  be  expected  to  have  the 
imagination  to  prepare  a  complete  town- 
planning  scheme  for  the  whole  area  where 
a  new  town  is  to  be  built.  Moreover, 
the  exercise  of  the  Town  Planning  Acts 
does  not  deal  satisfactorily  with  the  in- 
creases and  changes  in  land  values.  It  is 
for  this  reason  that  those  connected  with 
the  garden  city  movement,  which  has  as 
its  object  the  founding  of  new  towns 
and  the  extension  of  small  existing  towns 
into  garden  cities,  are  agreed  that  "  the 
whole  of  the  land  must  be  in  public 
ownership  or  held  in  trust  for  the  com- 
munity." 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  great  value  in 
the  whole  of  the  land  being  in  one  owner- 
ship, because 


132  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

(a)  It  is  then  possible  to  prepare  a  comprehensive 
plan  for  the  whole  area. 

(b)  In  considering   that  plan,   any  reduction  in 
the  potential  land  value  which  may  be  brought 
about    by    restricting    a    particular    area    to    agri- 
cultural purposes  only  may  be  counterbalanced  by 
the   increases   in   value   due   to   having   restricted 
factory  or  residential  areas. 

(c)  The  limitations  in  value  due  to  land  being 
used   for  open  spaces  or  recreation  purposes  only 
may  be  balanced  by  the  increases  in  value  of  the 
sites  facing  such  land. 

In  a  word,  the  creation  of  land  values 
will  be  in  one  hand.  But  it  is  not  sufficient 
that  the  land  should  be  in  one  ownership. 
The  monopoly  thus  created  must  be  used 
to  public  advantage.  The  predominating 
consideration  in  the  preparation  and  carry- 
ing out  of  a  town  plan  must  be  the  interests 
of  the  town  rather  than  the  profit  of  in- 
dividuals. Moreover,  the  excess  of  land 
values  created  over  and  above  the  amount 
required  to  cover  the  interest  upon  the 
capital  cost  of  development  must  be  used 
for  the  benefit  of  the  town  as  a  whole. 
These  results  can  only  be  achieved  by  the 


THE  TOWN  AND  LAND        133 

whole  of  the  fee-simple  of  the  land  not 
merely  being  in  one  ownership  but  in  the 
ownership  of  some  public  body,  whether 
Local  Authority  or  the  State,  or  else  held 
by  some  person  or  body  of  persons  in  trust 
for  the  community. 

If   this    policy    be    adopted,    then    the 
following  results  can  be  achieved  : 

(1)  The   main    object    of    those    preparing    the 
town  plan  will  be  to  secure  the  best  possible  town 
from   the   point  of  view  of  the   citizens  residing* 
in  it. 

(2)  The  same  motive  will  inspire  those  responsible 
for  the  carrying  out  of  the  town  plan,  an  operation 
which  will,  of  necessity,  take  a  considerable  period 
of  time   and   will   require   continuity   of  purpose. 
However  public- spirited  a  private  owner  may  be, 
he  cannot  guarantee  a  like  spirit  on  the  part  of  his 
heirs. 

(3)  In  particular,  the  permanent  maintenance  of 
a  belt  of  rural  land  can  be  secured. 

(4)  Changes  in  land  values  created  by  the  com- 
munity will  be  enjoyed  by  the  community. 

(5)  Greater  public  spirit  in  civic  life  and  a  larger 
measure  of  co-operation  for  the  public  good  by  the 
general  body  of  citizens  will  result  from  the  sense 
of  the  corporate  ownership  of  land  and  the  con- 


184  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

sequent  knowledge  that  improvements  in  value  will 
go  to  public  ends. 

(6)  The  grievances  of  the  ordinary  leaseholder  on 
the  renewal  of  the  lease  will  be  obviated.     Instead 
of  the  ground  landlord  for  his  own  profit  exacting 
the    utmost    farthing   on    such   renewal,    the    fact 
that  any  additional   rent  does   not  swell    private 
coffers  will  on  the  one  hand  be  a  restriction  against 
extortion  and  on  the  other  ensure  that   the   in- 
crease in  value  finds  its  way  back  to  the  general 
community. 

(7)  The  creation  of  vested  interests  is  minimised, 
and  thus  one  of  the  greatest  obstacles  to  improvement 
is   removed    and   greater   speed    and    precision   in 
development  is  secured. 

(8)  Generally  the  corporate  ownership  of  the  land 
gives  stability  to  the  city. 


It  will  be  seen  that  the  garden  city 
policy  secures  the  main  objects  of  those 
who  advocate  the  taxation  of  land  values 
and  the  nationalisation  of  the  land,  while 
at  the  same  time  it  meets  the  objections  of 
those  who  object  to  both  proposals.  The 
fact  that  people  holding  widely  divergent 
views  upon  the  land  question  generally 
have  agreed  upon  this  policy  with  regard 


THE  TOWN  AND  LAND        135 

to   the   creation   of  garden   cities   is   the 
strongest  evidence  of  its  soundness. 

It  remains  to  discuss  briefly  the  relative 
merits  of  the  land  being  in  public  ownership 
or  being  held  by  some  body  in  trust  for 
the  community.  Those  who  object  to  the 
nationalisation  or  the  municipalisation  of 
land  assert  that  if  public  bodies  engage 
in  the  business  of  land  development  they 
would  be  unlikely  to  exercise  sufficient 
initiative  or  to  carry  out  the  business  on 
sound  lines.  A  common  ground  can  be 
secured  between  the  advocates  of  municipal 
ownership  and  its  opponents  if,  during 
the  initial  stages  whilst  the  town  is  being 
developed,  the  land  is  owned  by  a  public 
company  whose  constitution  limits  the 
amount  of  interest  or  dividend  that  can 
be  paid  upon  its  capital,  the  remaining 
profits  going  to  the  community.  When 
the  town  is  developed  the  ownership  can 
be  taken  over  by  the  responsible  Local 
Authority  if  such  a  course  is  deemed  de- 
sirable. In  other  words,  the  best  policy  is 


136  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

probably  for  the  land  in  the  initial  stages 
to  be  held  in  trust  for  the  community  and 
in  the  final  stages  to  be  owned  by  the 
community.  It  is  unnecessary,  however, 
to  dogmatise  upon  this  matter. 


A  SHORT  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

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London  :  1902. 

The  Garden  City.  By  C.  B.  Purdom.  London: 
1913. 

Cities  in  Evolution.  By  Patrick  Geddes.  London  : 
1915. 

Some  Papers  and  Addresses  on  Social  Questions. 
By  Sir  Ralph  Neville.  London  :  1920. 

Ancient  Town  Planning.  By  F.  Haverfield. 
London  :  1913. 

Medieval  Town  Planning.  By  T.  F.  Tout.  London : 
1917. 

Town  Planning  in  Practice.  By  Raymond  Unwin. 
London  :  1909. 

Royal  Institute  of  British  Architects,  Transactions 
of  the  Town  Planning  Conference.  London  : 
1911. 

Architecture.     By  W.  R.  Lethaby.     London  :  1911. 

The  Case  for  Town  Planning.  By  H.  R.  Aldridge. 
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138  TOWN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 

The  Improvement  of  the  Dwellings  and  Surround- 
ings of  the  People.  (The  Example  of  Germany.) 
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Report  of  the  South  Wales  Regional  Survey 
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Garden  Cities  and  Town  Planning.  Monthly. 
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Town  Planning  Review.     Quarterly.     Liverpool. 

Town  Planning  Institute  Papers.     Yearly.     London. 

What  of  the  City  ?    By  Walter  D.  Moody.    Chicago  : 

1919. 
City  Planning.     ByJohnNolen.    New  York:  1916. 

Satellite   Cities.     By   G.   R.   Taylor.     New  York: 

1915. 
The  Growth  of  Cities  in  the  Nineteenth  Century : 

A  Study  in  Statistics.     By  Adna  Ferrin  Weber. 

New  York  :    1899. 
Journal  of  the  American  Institute  of  Architects. 

Monthly.     Washington. 

Proceedings  of  the  National  Conference  on  City 
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Housing  Problems  in  America.    Yearly.    New  York. 

Deutscher    Stadtebau    en    Bohmen.      By    Anton 
Hoenig.     Berlin:    1921. 


A  SHORT  BIBLIOGRAPHY    139 

Stadtbaukunst  Geschichtliche  Querschnitte  und 
Neuzeitliche  Ziele.  By  Dr  A.  E.  Brinckmann. 
Berlin:  1920. 

Handbuch  des  Wohnungswesens  und  der  Woh- 
nungsfrage.  By  Dr  Rud.  Eberstadt.  Jena : 
1920. 

Der  Stadtebau  nach  seinen  kiintlerischen  Grund- 
satzen.  By  Camillo  Sitte.  Vienna :  1909. 

Der  Stadtebau.     Monthly.     Berlin. 
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fry  Twnbutt&»  Shears,  Edinburgh